“Read my lips: no new taxes.”“I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
“I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.”
and…
Well… pretty much everything that comes out of the mouth of our current president.
They’re words, empty words. You can’t decipher what a politician believes by listening to their words… that’s just obvious. But increasingly even politicians’ actions are stealth, meant to be political cover for the backroom deals that no one will ever know about.
Because of this culture of American political corruption we have become a country of cynics who find it hard to take political speak seriously. It’s difficult for us to determine when to actually listen to a politician and accept their words as foundational beliefs; even when those words are consistently backed up by complementary actions.
It has gone so far that we have even begun to shrug off incendiary remarks aimed at America from foreign politicians, chalking those remarks up to political demagoguery. Take for example Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whose incendiary remarks include stating that he wants to destroy the “Zionist regime” and “Great Satan” who he identifies as the United States. He’s also quoted as saying “Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury…” Yet American foreign policy makers with a complicit media seem to shrug off such remarks as rhetoric aimed at appeasing the Iranian public. Have we as a country become so cynical of politicians that we refuse to believe that a man who literally stands at a podium on our soil and proudly proclaims that he wants to destroy us, may actually want to destroy us?
But his words aren’t even the scariest part… his beliefs should scare us even more.
Ahmadinejad, along with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei are not shy in proclaiming their end times beliefs. Here’s how Ahmadinejad explains them:
“Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi. We should define our economic, cultural and political policies on the policy of the Imam Mahdi’s return.”
He begins many of his public speeches with a prayer:
“[H]asten the arrival of Imam Mahdi and grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those who attest to his rightfulness.”
Who is this 12th Imam that the leaders of Iran pray will come quickly? To Shiite Muslims he is the 12th descendant of Mohammed who went into hiding 1300+ years ago. Their belief is that this Imam will come out of hiding in the last days after the world is thrown into chaos, clean things up and rule the world bringing peace and harmony to all. When Ahmadinejad says he wants to “pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam” he literally means he wants to cause the chaos that will bring him out of hiding. Why does he want to do this? He wants to live in the peace and harmony that he truly believes will accompany the 12th Imam’s return.
It’s insane to think that threatening to create chaos through sanctions will impede the plans of someone who wants to create chaos. It’s like me trying to force my son to clean his messy room by threatening to mess his room up if he doesn’t comply… if that makes sense to you then you have probably been onboard with the US Iran policy over the past decade.
I have some strong end times beliefs as well. We’ll tackle those beliefs next week
in part 2.
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