Iran Isolating Itself from Western Influence

The none-too-stable president of Iran is threatening his neighbors and demanding that they stop broadcasts of Western ideas into his country:

Iran has forced the United Arab Emirates of Dubai to halt live Persian-language television broadcasts.

Western diplomatic sources said the broadcasts contained Western programming and discussed democracy. They said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his advisers regarded these broadcasts as part of a U.S.-led effort to foment unrest in Iran.

"There were harsh messages sent to Dubai by the Iranian president personally," a diplomatic source said. "In the end, neither Dubai nor the central UAE government sought a confrontation."

The broadcasts were meant to be beamed in Iraq in a project financed by Holland.

Iran also pressured Holland to end support for the Persian-language broadcasts. The sources said Teheran awarded several major projects to the Netherlands in wake of its decision to withdraw support for the broadcasts.

In a Washington Times commentary, Armond de Borchgrave reminds us just who we're dealing with in Iran:

The man in charge of hoodwinking the Western powers about Iran's now 18-year-old secret nuclear program believes the apocalypse will happen in his own lifetime. He'll be 50 in October. (Maybe. Maybe not.-HC)

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Shi'ite creed has convinced him lesser mortals can not only influence but hasten the awaited return of the 12th Imam, known as the Mahdi. Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect holds this will be Muhammad ibn Hasan, the righteous descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the 9th century, at age 5. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war, bloodshed and pestilence. After this cataclysmic confrontation between the forces of good and evil, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.

"The ultimate promise of all Divine religions," says Ahmadinejad, "will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being [the 12th Imam], who is heir to all prophets. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace. Oh mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one." He reckons the return of the Imam, AWOL for 11 centuries, is only two years away.
Mr. Ahmadinejad is close to the messianic Hojjatieh Society, which is governed by the conviction the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by "the creation of chaos on Earth." He has fired Iran's most experienced diplomats and scores of other officials, presumably those who don't share his belief in apocalyptic conflagration.

The Iranian leader's finger on a nuclear trigger would be disquieting under any circumstances. Positively alarming would be a nuclear weapon in the hands of a man who badgers Israel, the U.S. and the European Union in belief a pre-emptive aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities will hasten the return of the missing Mahdi. Such an attack presumably would trigger anti-Western mayhem throughout the Middle East.

It's beginning to look like the only hope avoiding a nuclear exchange is for an overthrow by people within Iran, or by the West taking out their ability to make nuclear weapons. Either one will be difficult.