Eschatology And The Hidden Imam--And The US

The Geek is not a big fan of the Fox network's approach to news. Not that he has much brief with all the other television "news" sources either. However, this time kudos can go quite deservedly to the Mighty Murdoch Outlet.

Last Monday Fox news--and only Fox among American MSM--covered an important story from al Arabiya. In a characteristically rambling interview Iran's President and Orator-in-Chief, Ahmadinejad, stated he had "documentary evidence" proving the US was acting to prevent the return of the Hidden Imam, the Mahdi.

The importance of this small story lies not in its inherent absurdity but rather in the insight it provides regarding the world view of Ahmadinejad--and many others involved in the governing of Iran. Put quite simply the world view is eschatological in nature. That means it is focused not on the world and time as such currently exist but on the time after time, the world after the present world ends.

Eschatological world views are not the sole province of Shia believers. Nor is it the possession of Muslims alone. There exists a large number of Christians who share this "end times" view of life both present and future.

However, Christian Evangelicals do not possess nuclear weapons. Neither are they seeking to acquire this end-of-the-world capacity.

Yes, there is a strain of Jewish thought that might be characterized as end times oriented. There are Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox members of that faith who await the coming of the Messiah. Within this group there are a few who see the Messiah coming only as the world collapses in blood and destruction. It is, however, quite doubtful that this sort of mentality controls Israel's version of the Big Button, the mythical push-to-kill feature which would launch the Samson Option.

Things are quite different at the top levels of the Iranian semi-theocracy. Both Ahmadinejad and his mentor, Ayatollah Mezbah Yazdi, (who is also a member of the very important Assembly of Experts), believe strongly in the coming of the Mahdi. More, they believe to the depths of their souls that human action can hasten the returning of the Hidden Imam.

Basically, the human actions which must be taken to hurry along the coming of the Mahdi fall in two categories. One of these is consolidating and expanding the theocratic hold on all Iranians. This implies the necessity of suppressing all internal dissent not simply because it is a threat to the political structure of the state but because it is inherently evil, the product of Satan.

The second task ordained by their "divine mission" comes under the rubric of "international." The Iranian president and his ilk use this precise term in ways which are not customary elsewhere in the world.

The "international tasks" imposed by the "divine mission" are oriented toward bringing about the Shia version of Apocalypse. The most common understanding of the return of the Hidden Imam focuses upon the necessity for widespread death and destruction. Death and destruction which centers on the Mideast.

To this end President Ahmadinejad and his fellow True Believers have provided assistance to terrorist groups in countries ranging from Lebanon to Yemen. They have fostered religiously based political violence in a host of states across the Arab and Muslim world. Lastly, but far from least important, they have pursued the acquisition of nuclear weapons with a singleness of purpose which would be laudable were it not so potentially dangerous.

Three years back the defense and intelligence communities warned the Bush/Cheney administration of the eschatological nature of the Iranian regime as well as the implications of this orientation for US policy. It is evident that these warning were not taken seriously by the Deep Thinkers and Great Strategists of the time.

It is equally evident that the current administration is equally unconcerned about the relationship between eschatological True Belief and our efforts to dissuade Tehran from seeking their own personal end-the-world-as-we-know-it capacity. A blunt ground truth is that mere diplomatic isolation, sanctions, and the rest of the panoply of coercion short of war will be quite counterproductive. The power of nations is nothing compared to the potency of a divine mission.

The more pressure is placed on Iran, the more intransigent the country's leadership will be. If Russia and China were to join the Western countries in a new round of sanctions, the results will be a further stiffening of Iranian resistance. In the eschatological world view, the opposition is not to be treated as a warning, a cautionary note, but rather as the plain indication that divine will is being tested.

Not even the threat of an Israeli attack will exercise a deterrent effect. If the coming of the Mahdi depends upon the Apocalypse, then an Israeli attack and its aftermath serves as well as one launched by the Great Satan. To the eschatologists of Iran the Apocalypse is not to be avoided but welcomed, not retarded but hastened.

To many in the US, the West generally, the power of True Belief, particularly a True Belief rooted in both the necessity and desirability of the world as we know it coming to a bloody end, is difficult to fathom. Almost impossible to accept. Our view of life, of international relations, of the way the world should operate, is predicated upon the supremacy of rationality.

That fervent faith in the power of reason is our legacy from the Reformation and the generations which followed it. Our faith in the power of reason seems to have been recurrently justified by the accomplishments of Western science, technology, even politics and economics. We are all that we are today--wealthy, free, advanced in our toys and necessities alike--because reason has triumphed.

Yet there are other forms of reason. The rationality of the eschatological True Believer is not one which is warped. Neither is it the product of delusion. The desire for the Mahdi, the "divine mission" of seeking the early return of the Hidden Imam, is not divorced from reason.

Rather, the foundation truth with which we must deal is that the rationality of Ahmadinejad and others like him come from predicates different from ours. They grow rationality from a set of axioms not found widely in the West these past several centuries, but that does not make them any less powerful, any less real, any less of a threat.

If anything the different axioms make for a result far more risky for the world.