Apocalypse postponed So far, so good. Despite predictions that Iran would launch nuclear war today, the world has not ended quite yet.
Brian Whitaker August 22, 2006 11:57 AM | the GUARDIAN. So far, so good. I don't want to alarm anyone, but today (August 22) is the date chosen by Iran for "the apocalyptic ending of Israel and, if necessary, of the world" - at least according to Professor Bernard Lewis, the White House's favourite historian. Since the prof made his prediction on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago, it has made quite a stir in the nuttier fringes of the American media and on the Israeli fantasy website Debka (which I have written about before), and was even referred to seriously last weekend by the British Sunday Times. The bizarre apocalypse theory hinges on a single fact: that Iran promised to give the US its final answer on the question of nuclear development by August 22. From an Iranian point of view, this was a bit like saying "You can have our reply by the end of the month", because August 22 in the western calendar happens to be the last day of the month known as Mordad in the Persian calendar. Those hoping for a more sinister explanation for Iran's choice of date turned to the Islamic calendar and noted that August 22 corresponds to the 27th day of Rajab. This, Professor Lewis observed, "is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque', usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (cf, Koran XVII.1)." On the basis of no evidence whatsoever, he then added: "This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and, if necessary, of the world." The purpose of all this scaremongering is obviously to build up fears about an Iranian nuclear attack. The main obstacle to promoting such fears is that Iran does not possess any nuclear weapons but Lewis seems determined not to let that stand in the way and apparently believes that Iran already has a fully-prepared arsenal. "There is a radical difference between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons," he has been quoted as saying. "This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers." [gee, isn't there a major country in North America that's led by someone with an apocalyptic worldview?] When I first wrote about the apocalypse theory on Comment is free, I suggested that Prof Lewis had completely lost his marbles, but I was wrong about that. He had merely picked up someone else's lost marbles. Lewis was happy to give the apocalypse story his own imprimatur in the Wall Street Journal but I have since discovered that he was not the person who originally dreamed it up. On July 24 - two weeks before Lewis wrote in the Wall Street Journal - an article appeared on the Media Line website. It said: People of the Middle East are obsessed with symbolism, especially when it strongly supports honour and dignity. When a statement by the Supreme National Security Council of Iran says it will reply by August 22 to the western incentive package to stop enriching uranium, it chose that date for a very precise reason. August 21, 2006 (Rajab 27, 1427) is known in the Islamic calendar as the Night of the Sira'a and Miira'aj, the night Prophet Mohammed (saas) ascended to heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a Bourak (Half animal, half man), while a great light lit-up the night sky, and visited Heaven and Hell also Beit al-Saada and Beit al-Shaqaa (House of Happiness and House of Misery) and then descended back to Mecca. The night of August 21 is a very, very important night in Shia'a Islam. What Iran's Ahmadinajead is promising the world by August 22 is the light in the sky over the Aqsa Mosque that took place the night before. That is his answer to the package of incentives the international community offered Iran on June 6. The world and especially the US State Department should take this date seriously. Nothing happens without a reason in Iran and the events in Lebanon were intentionally started by Hezbollah, with Iran's tacit knowledge and approval leading to the Rajab 27 night when it delivers its answer, in the form of "light in the sky", over the Aqsa Mosque. Three days later, this was taken up by the neocon organ, Front Page Magazine, in an article by Robert Spencer, the founder of a nasty website known as Jihad Watch. The author of the original Media Line article was a Syrian-American called Farid Ghadry who runs the Washington-based Reform Party of Syria. Ghadry spends a lot of time hob-nobbing with prominent neocons - apparently in the hope that the US will eventually install him as president of Syria. His ambitions in that direction have become so transparent that he has often been likened to Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who was once favoured by the Pentagon to succeed Saddam Hussein. Besides scaremongering over Iran, Ghadry has also been trying to stir up fears about Syrian weapons. As part of his case for regime change in Damascus, his blog on August 13 claimed the Syrian Air Force had been testing "chemical weapons aerial delivery". In true Chalabi style, this was attributed to "well informed sources inside Syria". Having left Syria at the age of 10, Ghadry has little first-hand knowledge of the country he hopes to lead and some of his plans for toppling the Assad regime (he once told the Americans all they had to do was to drop leaflets over Damascus, urging the people to rise up) are reminiscent of Chalabi's misplaced optimism. Nevertheless, Ghadry seems to have chums in all the usual neocon places, including Richard Perle, one of the chief architect of the Iraq invasion, and soothsayer Michael Ledeen who made the famously wrong prediction that Iran would test its first nuclear weapon on November 5, 2003. The last time I wrote about this crowd, a reader expressed some surprise that White House policymakers rely on such people: why not try astrology instead? Personally, I don't seek guidance from the stars but the idea does have something to commend it. The results would surely be no worse than at present and, with luck, perhaps even a little better. If anyone would like to explore this further, here's a handy guide to the star signs of some key players: TAURUS: Tony Blair (May 6) and Saddam Hussein (April 28). PISCES: Osama bin Laden (March 10) and Ariel Sharon (February 26) - retired. SCORPIO: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran (October 20), Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel (October 21) and Condoleezza Rice (November 14). VIRGO: Hassan Nasrallah of Hizbullah (August 31) and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria (September 11). LIBRA: Ehud Olmert (September 30). CANCER: George Bush (July 6) and Donald Rumsfeld (July 9), plus Alexander the Great, Henry VIII, Julius Caesar, Princess Diana and Imelda Marcos. -- Jim Devine / "Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate."-- Bertrand Russell
