subject: Hypo Venture Capital Headlines: Religious World Leaders Dont Always Welcome Armageddon [print this page] History tells us that nine countries developed nuclear weapons after the United States. Three were hostile dictatorships. But none ever used nuclear weapons against an enemy or gave them to terrorists.
Hawks warn that we should not be reassured by history. Iran is different, they say. Irans leaders arent merely hostile and ruthless. They are religious fanatics. These are people who have a particular, you know, fanatically religious world view, and their statements imply to me no hesitation of using nuclear weapons if they see them achieving their religious or political purposes, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in January.
Harper is alone among world leaders in talking publicly like that. But his view is widespread.
The mullahs goals are metaphysical, wrote Ed Morrissey, an influential American blogger and broadcaster. They want their Messiah to arrive and establish a global Islamic rule. According to their view of Islam, that will come at the end of a great conflagration, and there isnt a much better way to start one of those than by lobbing nukes at Israel, the U.S., or both.
In the past, nuclear powers could be dissuaded from using nuclear weapons by the threat of counterattack. But that wont work with Iran, hawks say. If the creation of Gods final paradise requires that the world end in fiery tribulation, then nuclear annihilation would not be a catastrophe. It would be martyrdom.
Martyrdom is not to be feared. It is to be greeted joyously. It is to be desired, planned for, and worked toward.
The internal logic here looks sound. Frighteningly so.
But only when viewed at a distance. Up close, it falls apart.
Given the novelty of the martyr state argument, and how unequivocally its proponents present it, one would expect to encounter an avalanche of credible evidence, wrote national security analyst Andrew Grotto in a 2009 essay. Yet that is not the case.
Of course it is true that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad often mentions the return of the Hidden Imam the messiah of Shiite Islam in his speeches. But Ahmadinejad has actually been rebuked by leading Iranian clerics for doing so. One said Ahmadinejad would be better off concentrating on Irans social problems than indulging in such mystical rhetoric.
And remember that Ahmadinejad does not actually control Irans foreign policy. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei does. And while Khamenei has made many odious and disturbing statements he recently called Israel a cancerous tumour he doesnt seem to be scanning the clouds for descending angels. Not one of (Khamaneis) speeches refers to any apocalyptic sign or reveals any special eagerness for the return of the Hidden Imam, wrote Iran analyst Mehdi Khalaji in a 2008 report.
But theres an even more fundamental problem here.
Irans leaders may sincerely believe in an inevitable apocalypse. And Iran may get nuclear weapons. But if that happens, it wont be the first time a nation with nuclear weapons has been led by people with apocalyptic beliefs.
Communism was an apocalyptic dogma, after all. It didnt use religious language. But the parallels with religious apocalypticism an inevitable revolution leads to suffering and destruction that purifies the world and ushers in the perfect socialist state are obvious. So is the conclusion about nuclear war that believers might draw.
If the worse came to the worst and half of mankind died, Mao Tsetung said, the other half would remain while imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist. So nuclear war wasnt to be feared. It was to be embraced.
As I discussed in an earlier column, Maos beliefs and Chinas imminent development of nuclear weapons terrified Western analysts who thought he couldnt be deterred from launching a nuclear attack. But when Mao got nuclear weapons he did what every other leader with nuclear weapons has done: He used them only as insurance against foreign invasion. Mao wasnt mad, after all.
We might also want to consider the beliefs of Western leaders before we assume Irans leaders would embrace mass suicide.
Like Irans leaders, many Christians believe the world will and must end. They, too, believe a messiah will return. They, too, believe there will be destruction and suffering. They, too, believe we must pass through this dark time to enter Gods perfect and eternal kingdom.
One of those Christians was Ronald Reagan.
He believed Armageddon was inevitable and probably imminent, wrote Lou Cannon in the most authoritative Reagan biography. The Soviet Union, Communist China, and Israel all had roles to play in the coming drama, Reagan believed.
So did nuclear weapons. Reagan told Cannon he believed they were the great plague prophesied in the Book of Revelation.
Reagan was surprisingly open about his beliefs. He discussed them with senators and statesmen. Even his national security adviser.
We may be the generation that sees Armageddon, Reagan said on Jim Bakkers PTL television network. That was 1980. The next year he became president and took control of a nuclear arsenal that could create Armageddon several times over.
Is that terrifying? Maybe. The same logic that suggests Irans theocrats would welcome nuclear war suggests the same of Ronald Reagan.
But Reagan didnt welcome nuclear war. He took a hard line early in his administration but there is abundant evidence that Reagan personally loathed nuclear weapons, dreamed of a world free of them, and would have happily scrapped every nuke in the American arsenal if he could have got other nations to do the same.
That may not square with Reagans religious beliefs. But it does fit with how people of sound mind think: They may embrace apocalyptic ideas in the abstract but when they look at their homes, their countries, their loved ones all that they hold precious annihilation doesnt appear so desirable.
Faith and fanaticism are powerful forces. They can drive people to commit horrible crimes. We must be on guard against them.
But do not underestimate the human desire to live.
