Aaahhhh!! It's nuclear nightmare time

The Cold War was scary, but there was never any doubt but that a cold rationalism drove the parties engaged in that war, making it less likely (although not impossible) that either would push the red button. Charles Krauthammer reminds us, however, that such is not the case in Iran. That is, there's no rationalism anywhere near the red button, only messianic insanity:

The president of a country about to go nuclear is a confirmed believer in the coming apocalypse. Like Judaism and Christianity, Shiite Islam has its own version of the messianic return -- the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam. The more devout believers in Iran pray at the Jamkaran Mosque that houses a well from which, some believe, he will emerge. When Ahmadinejad unexpectedly won the presidential elections, he immediately gave $17 million of government funds to the shrine. Last month, Ahmadinejad said publicly that the main mission of the Islamic Revolution is to pave the way for the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam. And as in some versions of fundamentalist Christianity, the second coming will be accompanied by the usual trials and tribulations, death and destruction. Iranian journalist Hossein Bastani reported Ahmadinejad saying in official meetings that the hidden imam will reappear in two years. So a Holocaust-denying, virulently anti-Semitic, aspiring genocidist, on the verge of acquiring weapons of the apocalypse, believes that the end is not only near, but nearer than the next American presidential election. (Pity the Democrats. They cannot catch a break.) This kind of man would have, to put it gently, less inhibition about starting Armageddon than a normal person. Indeed, with millennial bliss pending, he would have positive incentive to, as they say in Jewish eschatology, hasten the end.

Krauthammer points out that Iran's manifest insanity, coupled with its ability to act on this insanity, is being met with the usual verbiage from world leaders, but nothing more:

This brought the usual reaction from European and American officials, who, with Churchillian rage and power, called these statements unacceptable. That something serious may accrue to Iran for this -- say, expulsion from the U.N. for violating its most basic principle by advocating the outright eradication of a member state -- is, of course, out of the question.

I've lived in big cities, with lots of delusional schizophrenics populating the downtown streets and the City parks. Some appear peaceful. But there are the ones that rant and rave, that hear voices from God, that threaten violence -- and these are the ones that I've had no hesitation about reporting to my nearest police officer. Iran is that delusional person, and there is no police officer anywhere near. By the way, the article is interesting for one more reason. I blogged here about the problems Western countries are having with Muslim immigrants who believe it is culturally appropriate -- and Koranically sanctioned -- to rape non-Muslim women. That started a heated debate in my Comments section about how well Muslim doctrines compare to Christian doctrines in this regard, with one reader pointing out that the Bible, if taken completely literally, would also espouse some pretty horrifying violence and misogyny. Others have pointed out that even fundamentalist Christians don't actually interpret the Bible that literally, while fundamentalist Muslims still do interpret the Koran with such rigidity. Krauthammer notes one other thing:

To be sure, there are such madmen among the other monotheisms. The Temple Mount Faithful in Israel would like the al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount destroyed to make way for the third Jewish Temple and the messianic era. The difference with Iran, however, is that there are all of about 50 of these nuts in Israel, and none of them is president.