I am hugely ignorant about an awful lot of things.
I had not, until today for example been aware of the Hidden Imam. Obviously because he's 'hidden'. Well now I know.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apparantly is on good terms with the Hidden Imam according to this article in the Sunday Telegraph. He has had khalvats (kinda audiences) with this 'Where's Waldo?' character.
Let's be honest here. If you were the sort of person who got a little bit worried at the mere possibility of the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the UK praying occasionally, you should be crapping yourself really very worried indeed about Mr Ahmadinejad's antics.
"Last year, it was after another khalvat that Ahmadinejad announced his intention to stand for president. Now, he boasts that the Imam gave him the presidency for a single task: provoking a "clash of civilisations" in which the Muslim world, led by Iran, takes on the "infidel" West, led by the United States, and defeats it in a slow but prolonged contest that, in military jargon, sounds like a low intensity, asymmetrical war.
In Ahmadinejad's analysis, the rising Islamic "superpower" has decisive advantages over the infidel. Islam has four times as many young men of fighting age as the West, with its ageing populations. Hundreds of millions of Muslim "ghazis" (holy raiders) are keen to become martyrs while the infidel youths, loving life and fearing death, hate to fight. Islam also has four-fifths of the world's oil reserves, and so controls the lifeblood of the infidel. More importantly, the US, the only infidel power still capable of fighting, is hated by most other nations."
Guess what. The Clash of Civilisations is coming soon to a pavement near you. And guess something else. It would be coming whether we'd invaded Iraq or not. Interventionism isn't an option, it's a duty.
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