- His
tone was low-key, quiet, deceitfully tame — it was clear he didn’t want
to make splashy, provocative headlines this time around. (Why? See
below)
- He repeatedly denounced Israel and the Jewish people, as expected.
- Yet he seemed to be making a calculated effort to appear reasonable — he didn’t deny the Holocaust, he didn’t call for the annihilation of the U.S. and Israel or say that both countries were doomed and “nearing the end of the road” as he did in 2008.
- Noteworthy was that he didn’t
end his address with a prayer to Allah asking him to hasten the coming
of the Islamic Messiah, known as the “Twelfth Imam,” or the “Mahdi,” or
the “just and
promised One” as he did in 2005 and 2006.
- Nor did he open the speech by praying for the Allah to hasten the coming of the Islamic messiah, as he did in 2007.
- That said, Ahmadinejad’s address contained more references to the coming of the Mahdi than any of the others, including his 2008 speech which did build on this theme. He referred at least twice to a Shia Islamic eschatological notion of “entezar.” This is the capacity for a Shia Muslim to wait patiently for the coming of the Islamic Messiah. Once the transcript is available, I’ll point out these references more clearly.
- Bottom line: Ahmadinejad speech reflected the fact that he knows he’s walking a fine line. He desperately wants to stay true to his End Times theology and prepare the world for the coming of the Mahdi, but he also needs to keep the world community from unifying to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
- The Canadian, American, British, French, German and Israeli delegations walked out, among others. [Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand - ed]
- But I suspect his ploy to appear “reasonable” enough to most U.N. leaders to avoid draconian economic sanctions just may work.