Why Iran's Top Leaders Believe That the End of Days Has Come

By Joel C. Rosenberg

 
Why would Iran authorize a major terrorist operation on American soil? Skeptics say the much-discussed “foiled” Iranian plot makes no sense. We will know soon enough if the Feds have sufficient evidence related to this specific plot. But Iranian leaders may, in fact, have a motive to accelerate direct attacks on the U.S.: Shia Islamic eschatology, or "End Times" theology.

Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are convinced that the End of Days has come. They believe the Shia messiah known as the “Twelfth Imam” or the “Mahdi” will appear soon to establish a global Islamic kingdom known as the caliphate.

What’s more, they believe the way to hasten the coming of the Twelfth Imam is to annihilate Israel (which they call the “Little Satan”), and the United States (which they call the “Great Satan”). We should not, therefore, be surprised that Iran is probing for weaknesses in American intelligence and homeland security.

Khamenei told Iranians in July 2010 that he personally met with the Twelfth Imam. He also claimed to be the personal representative of the Mahdi on earth, and said all Muslims must “obey him.” Meanwhile, Western intelligence agencies say he continues to work with Ahmadinejad and the Iranian military to develop nuclear warheads and the ballistic missiles to deliver them.

Much of the media has focused on Iran’s threats to wipe Israel “off the map.” But journalists have generally ignored the fact that the Iranian regime is equally determined to destroy the United States.

On October 26, 2005, for example, Ahmadinejad said, “God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism.”

On June 2, 2008, Ahmadinejad said, “Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come, and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started.”

Iran’s leaders actually believe that the destruction of the U.S. is foreordained, just as the Soviet Union’s implosion was predetermined. They see U.S. economic weakness as a sign that the end of America is near.

Other signs include President Obama’s political weakness in the polls and his unwillingness to use force against Iran even after the Iranian murder of Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon over the years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees the gravity of the situation. “The Obama presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,” he told The Atlantic magazine in March 2009. “You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs,” Netanyahu said of the Iranian leadership. “When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.”'

Unfortunately, Netanyahu hasn’t seen the Obama administration strengthen the American economy or take decisive measures to stop Iran from getting the Bomb, and he is getting anxious. “The international community must stop Iran before it’s too late,” Netanyahu warned in his United Nations speech last month. “If Iran is not stopped, we will all face the specter of nuclear terrorism, and the Arab Spring could soon become an Iranian winter….The world around Israel is definitely becoming more dangerous.”

To truly understand how just how dangerous Iran’s regime really is, American leaders need to better understand Shia eschatology.

Read more: Fox News