But I'm not here to condemn this guy to hell. That's not my call. Instead, the purpose here is to look at his views critically and figure out what he's talking about and why. Also, I'd like to discuss the 'who cares' factor; why is this even worth talking about? That's the purpose of this post.
So, after reading the letter, it would seem Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a harmless Christian peacenik. Who would've thought?! If one wasn't familiar with this man, you might think,
"Boy! What a great guy, asking for peace, chiding the President for being un-Christ-like, outlining the west's wrongs in Iraq and Guatanomo. This guy's all for peace!"
Heck, he even went to the trouble of saying "peace be upon him" when talking about Jesus. Gee, what a good young fellow, why don't we invite him to our local church?
I think I've grown a new awe of Mr. Ahmadinejad. Until recently I thought he was just another Islamic extremist; now I find out he is much more than that: By pointing out the good teachings of Jesus Christ (whom Mr. Ahamdinejad, of course, rejects) and outlining Bush's deviance from those teachings, Mr. Ahmadinejad cleverly cloaks his own evil ideology. This strategy is reminiscent of something Paul, an early follower of Jesus, wrote in his letter to Rome:
"If you--as a religious person--think you're on the high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn't so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you've done."
This is precisely the tactic Mr. Ahmadinejad is pulling; he's doing this in order to direct attention away from his own evil ideology.
What is so wrong about Mr. Ahmadinejad's ideology? Let's count the ways.
He calls for the destruction of Israel and the extermination of the Jewish people in Israel. That alone should point our minds towards treating this man's monologues as one would treat Adolf Hitler's. I don't say that lightly or jokingly; this man is calling for the destruction of a people and a nation by violent means. If history has taught Jews anything, it's to take threats of extermination very seriously. Wake up folks, this is serious, potentially molding our entire century, just as WW2 did the 20th.
The President of Iran also is attempting to obtain nuclear materials. He claims, of course, it's for energy reasons. Let's see: call for Israel's destruction, then obtain nuclear materials. Hmmm...I wonder what he could be planning...oh, what could it be? Hmm, it stumps me at the moment. Maybe it'll come back to me later.
To further his goal of destroying Israel, he's modified Shi'ite Islamic theology: according to the new theology, 12th Imam, the Mahdi, the last known descendant of Islam's founder Mohammed, the 12th Imam by the name of Abul-Qassem Mohammad who disappeared in the 900s, will return if Islam hastens to create war and chaos on the earth. In nearly all of his speeches since his taking of power, including his September address to the U.N. General Assembly, the President of Iran has spoken constantly of hastening the return of the 12th Imam by means of creating violence against Israel and the West, thus paving the way for the 12th Imam, the Mahdi.
What Mr. Ahmadinejad's letter really is, folks, is a way to temporarily pacify the West, lowering the chances of western intervention in the wild things bubbling over in Iran. Things are getting so hot, they're almost hitting the boiling point; soon things will start to drip down the pot and leak over to others. When that happens, Iran will make its move and hit Israel with a nuclear weapon. Watch for it and remember it was predicted.
To put the icing on the cake, Mr. Ahmadinejad doesn't buy into the Jewish and Zionist lies, you know those 'lies' that 6 million Jews -- 1/3 of the entire Jewish race -- died in the Nazi Holocaust. Yeah, all those stories you hear about, those books you read, all those tales by Jewish survivors, that footage of Nazi concentration camps, the heaps and piles of dead Jewish prisoners, the mass graves, the physical markings on the survivors, the gas chambers, the bone-littered furnaces where Jews were burned to death en masse: all of it is a big lie by the Zionists. Yeah. The Iranian President slyly puts the reader at ease, saying of the Jewish Holocaust, "Suppose, for a moment, that it is true..." Suppose? The whole world knows it's true; there is no supposition needed! Ask Germany, for God's sake, ask the people that did it if it's true.
And that's not even the best part! The friendly Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims students from around the world are submitting to him honest and serious papers claiming the state of Israel has never existed until now. Reading that, I'm not sure whether to bust out in comedic laugh or burn in frustration at his ignorance; it is a historical and archeological fact -- it is not debated in the least among the scientific community -- whether Israel existed at some point in history. It's undisputed among any serious thinker that Israel has existed; this view is only espoused by blind zealots looking to further their cause of Israel's ultimate destruction.
I can see his point of view now. Yes, I see it. If you accept all the anti-Jewish nonsense and burn in zeal for your own religion, and you've modified your theology so that the destruction of the Jews is an absolute requirement for Islamic justice, and their very existence is a thorn in your side, and you see Jews as the oppressors of Palestinians, then yes, he must be right; we should all hate the Jews again. We ought to enact a final solution: complete erasure of the Jewish race.
Sound familiar? It should; this is blatant Nazi talk. And people are buying it. Wake up! this man is espousing Nazi-like views! He is a powerful person in a powerful country, espousing views that would make Hitler red in the face.
What makes this situation worse is that many people of Iran are do not agree with the radicals in power. There is a movement of moderates in the country that opposes the state censorship, the restriction of religion, the oppression of the opposing views, religions, the politics of the ruling zealots.
But I wonder; where are the Muslim moderates? Where are the Muslim folks condemning wholeheartedly the views of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? How can someone say Islam is peaceful when virtually all of the Islamic nations support such views? That is one thing I don't get; Muslims will always tell me their religion is peaceful; to any Muslim readers, how does one reconcile Ahmadinejad's views with a peaceful Islam?
I'm not so callous to think my religion has done better; men have done horrible things in the name of Christ to the Jewish people over the centuries, and only recently have we come to realize our error. If only Islam could prevent history from repeating itself; if only the Islamic moderates could speak out against this man, Islam wouldn't need to go through more war and death to learn the same lesson Christianity has: the Jews are here for a divine reason, and though they don't agree with our theology, it by no means gives us a right to kill them over it.