Apocalypse Now? National Review on August 22

National Review ^ | August 10, 2006 | Joel C. Rosenberg

[cdga5for4]

Is Iran planning an apocalyptic strike against Israel and/or the United States for August 22? If so, what should the U.S. do to protect Americans and our ally? Such questions are worrying a growing number of officials in the White House, at the CIA, and at the Pentagon, and for good reason.

[cdga5for4]

More comment on Bernard Lewis's premise.

[ClaireSolt]

Has anyone read his novels?

I imagine those Iranian revolutionaries are on a pretty short deadline right now.

[Lunatic Fringe]

Will it be like the other Apocalyptic dates that have come and gone??

[Sabatier]

"In recent days, Ahmadinejad and his advisers have said that Iran will answer the world regarding the future of its nuclear program on August 22. That happens to be a very significant date for Muslims: It is the anniversary of the supposed 'night flight' by Mohammed from Saudi Arabia to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to heaven and back again. There is a worry that Ahmadinejad is planning some sort of apocalyptic attack as his 'response' on August 22. If so, time is short and the clock is ticking."

[cdga5for4]

I've read them. I liked the first three. They aren't really deep, and the character development isn't great, but he understands the region and its issues very, very well. I'm really looking forward to his non-fiction book, Epicenter. I thought of his first four books, The Copper Scroll, his latest, was a little too Left Behindish. Some of the stuff in his first two books is amazing because the foresight on his part is remarkable. The interesting part of his newest two books is the Ezekiel 38 and 39 prophesies. I'm not saying the guys Tom Clancy by any stretch but he gets it and I support him because of that fact alone.

[Brooklyn Kid]

It isn't really Lewis's premise. He was kind of late getting in on it.
It's been written about for weeks (months?) since it was first mentioned by Ahmadinejad. (in June?)

But thanks for posting this.

[cdga5for4]

Probably, but I think this one is different because this one is an evil man trying to create the apocalypse on August 22, rather than God.

[RaceBannon]

bump

[cdga5for4]

You're right. I apologize. Lewis brought it even more to the fore because of his history and profile.

[Rutles4Ever]

Wow. I totally believe that Joel Rosenberg isn't trying to sell any books right about now. Since Mr. Rosenberg is a pre-Trib rapture kind of guy, I wonder what a "cataclysmic" event would do to his faith if he's not whisked away on August 21st?

[Brooklyn Kid]

Article here on the subject you might be interested in also, "The Missiles of 27 Rajab"

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23578

[oh8eleven]

I think this one is different because this one is an evil man trying to create the apocalypse on August 22, rather than God.
Wouldn't that be Satan?

[dennisw]

What will happen on AUG22 is new threats issued by Iran and they might be nuclear threats where they declare they have some nuclear tipped missiles. There will be no nuclear strike on AUG22 because Islamics much prefer stealth ambushes and sneak attacks.

Worst case scenario on AUG22 is Iran says Israel must back off doing A B or C because Iran will nuke them or already has a nuke secreted somewhere in Tel Aviv

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

Check out:
"The Middle East"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684832801/sr=1-2/qid=1155222095/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-8008250-3311049?ie=UTF8&s=books

Also:

"What Went Wrong..."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060516054/sr=1-1/qid=1155222163/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8008250-3311049?ie=UTF8&s=books

There is more, here is an Amazon comment on from What Went Wrong...


Occidentalism, a recent New York Review of Books article, is destined to become the landmark counterpoint to Orientalism, Edward Said's dishonest 1976 theory. Avishai Margalit and Ian Buruma define a cluster of anti-Western and anti-American ideas that played a large role in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The haters see "arrogance, feebleness, greed, depravity, and decadence" as peculiarly Western or American traits, which they believe must be stamped out.
Islamist anti-Western ideas, rooted in fascism, mirror those of Hirohito's Japan, and of course, Hitler's Germany. Jorge Semprun's 1997 Literature or Life also notes the similarity between the two ideologies. He doesn't develop that point, but I was reaching the same conclusion when articles by Benjamin Netanyahu, Bernard Lewis and Daniel Pipes, among others confirmed my thinking. In exploring Islamism's ideological predecessors, Occidentalism serves as a brilliant companion to Bernard Lewis' equally brilliant book.

Readers familiar with Efraim and Inari Karsh's superb Empires of the Sand or David Fromkin's Peace to End All Peace may have an easier time absorbing myriad historical events in Lewis' thin but substantive volume. One need not know the history to understand what he says, however.

Lewis explains not the Islamists' anti-Western ideas, but the background for them. The history of Islamic defeats at the hands of the West--in trade, technology, printing, science, philosophy, political development, modernization, diplomacy, war--stretches back 600 years. In 1502 Venice warned the Ottoman Sultans of the threat posed to the spice trade by the sea route Vasco de Gama had opened up between Europe and Asia. The Ottomans ignored the warning, just as they ignored many other problems, and the Muslim East eventually felt the results.

To a Westerner this might seem odd. As Lewis has previously pointed out, Muslim peoples are both shaped by their history and keenly aware of it. The Muslim pulpit, schools, and media nourish the people's sense of history. While often slanted and inaccurate, teachings frequently reference events and personalities of the 7th century. But where in the West, historians consider the past partly to avoid repeating it, the Muslim East historically took different lessons from historical study. In Medieval times, Muslims wrote "vast, rich and varied historical literature," none of it on non-Muslims or even on pre-Muslim regional history.

Lewis reviews both events centuries before the demise of the Ottoman Empire and the cultural incompatibility which colonial powers carried into the region. The British and French constitutional and parliamentary systems for example collapsed in places unable to understand or support them. The fascist ideological and political systems of 1930s Germany and Italy, on the other hand, gained wide support and rooted, even after those countries were defeated in World War II.

Lewis covers myriad other cultural gaps as well. These include widely divergent attitudes on everything from women and science to music. Namik Kemal, a leader of the Young Ottomans, in 1867 expounded on the need to liberate and educate women and an Egyptian named Qasim Amin expanded the views in 1899. Concubinage fell by the wayside; Polygomy is now rare except in Arabia. (Slavery is still practiced in several Arab countries.) But Lewis notes that women's rights have become, for traditionalists, a noxious symbol of Westernization which must be barred from Islam, "and where it has already entered, must be ruthlessly excised."

Profound differences also occur over separation of faith and state. In Islam, the two are inseparable. In the Christian West, they can and must be separated. Even the sense of time and space is different. Arabs may have divided the day into 24 hours, but as they gradually imported mechanical clocks from Europe, they still had to be reset daily according to an old tradition and locally-made clocks lagged those of Europe.

Even the approaches to modernity differ sharply. Within a broad historical perspective, Lewis writes, "cultural innovation is not and has never been the monopoly of one region or people. The same is true of resistance to it." In short, neither the West nor Islam has a monopoly on success or failure.

But Lewis nevertheless believes that for the Muslim Middle East, things have "gone badly wrong. Compared with its millennial rival, Christendom, the world of Islam had become poor, weak, and ignorant." By the 19th century, as modernizers focused on military, economic and political reforms, results in Islam were disappointing. Quests for victory led to military defeats. Economic development nevertheless left whole nations impoverished, corrupt, in need of external aid and largely dependent on one resource--oil. Remedies failed. And the rise in nationalism--another European import--allowed and even encouraged Arabs to blame others for their failures. This included blaming Jews, and after 1948, Israel.

If Lewis is right, the war now facing Western nations has roots in the 15th century. The current path could make the suicide bomber a metaphor for the Middle East. That would lead to yet another alien domination. The alternative, Lewis concludes, is for Muslims to "abandon grievance and victimhood, settle their differences, and join their talents, energies and resources in a common endeavor" to again make the region "a major center of civilization."

[JamesP81]

This ought to tell you something about Ahmadinejad's personality. He thinks he can bring about the end of the world. IOW, he thinks he's equal to God. What a nutjob.

If she shoots a nuke at Israel or the US, the world will end: his. Swiftly.

[Publius6961]

Joel C. Rosenberg writes novels?

[muawiyah]

One of the Middle East's most pressing problems is that of modern mental health care.

Currently they take folks suffering from clinical depression and prescribe the "suicide belt".

Now a device with a name like this, in the West, might be thought of as some sort of restraint to keep someone from hurting himself. In the Middle East it's viewed as a method for going to Heaven quickly.

A little Prozac blended into the public water supplies and wells would go a long way toward resolving this.

[RightWhale]

Satan has already done what he will do. The Apocalypse will be by the hand of Man per instruction by Satan.

[bassmaner]

Is Iran planning an apocalyptic strike against Israel and/or the United States for August 22?

IMHO, Ahmadinejad is f**king with us about 8/22. Unless he's made an alliance with Russia and/or China to back him up if he attacks (very unlikely), he has no chance of success and he knows it. After all, why attack us or Israel directly and galvanize American and Israeli support for a massive counter-strike when he's achieving 'success' via his 'mini-wars' by proxy in Iraq and Lebanon?

Of course, 'success' in these 'mini-wars' is assured when the so-called 'world community' attempts to force a premature ceasefire in Lebanon which leaves Hezbollah in place, and the Left in America attempts to force a premature bug out of American forces from Iraq. As long as Iran plays that game, they're in the driver's seat on their way to nukes because of our damned political correctness which is preventing us from acting pre-emptively against them. Iran will stall until they have a substantial nuke arsenal built up before they'd consider using them: I doubt very much if they're at that point, but you never know ...

[EBH]

The name of the horse was Buraq

There is an airline called Buraq

And Saddam modified the SA-3 was to be used to produce the Baraq missle (http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/missile/rumsfeld/pt2_katz2.htm )

[Rutles4Ever]

For let’s be clear: should Iran go nuclear on this president’s watch, all the gains made to date in the War on Terror will be wiped out overnight. That is not a legacy this president wants, nor one this nation can afford.

Ahmadinejad is an evil mad genius. He's going to get his nuclear weapon ane he knows it. Personally, I think this 8/22 hysteria is just that - hysteria. The only kind of cataclysmic even Iran can trigger at this time would be a hand-carried atomic weapon smuggled into a place like Tel Aviv. Given the extraordinary success the IDF has in arresting would-be-terrorists with belt bombs before they get to their targets, I'm going to venture that no one is going to be able to just waltz into Israel with a nuke.

[GOPJ]

... I think this one is different because this one is an evil man trying to create the apocalypse on August 22, rather than God.

Good point. So, the real question is, will he attack to save face and keep the mo going? Maybe...

[ANGGAPO]

I am sure that there are a few missiles aimed at Iran as insurance against that nut-job doing something.

[GOPJ]

...Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic objectives could lead to a “cataclysmic” attack on August 22. Lewis observed that there it is not possible to say with any certainty that such an attack is planned, but he felt compelled to explain to Americans just how dangerous Ahmadinejad’s thinking is, especially in light of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian “end times” theology, such as the “War of Gog and Magog” and “Armageddon.” How, Lewis asked, can you negotiate with a man who believes it is his religious duty and mission to bring about the end of the world?

We have a problem ...

[DarthVader]

I'd say there is a whole bunch of resources at the ready to reduce Iran to ashes if the nutball trys anything.

[krunkygirl]

save

[Rummyfan]

The simple answer is you can't negotiate with him. Pre-emptive action is all that is available to us.

[HawaiianGecko]

I read  What Went Wrong fairly soon after 9/11 and The Crisis of Islam a year or so later. I have returned to both of them several times in the last 5 years as Bernard Lewis is without a doubt the foremost academic authority on the Middle East.

What Went Wrong was already in page proof prior to September 2001. And although it was modified some to reflect 911 before it hit the print shop, it still is a book without slant due to the WTC/Pentagon attacks.

Upon reading Lewis it is completely clear this man has NO axe to grind. He is purely academic and brilliant in his thought and conclusions. He doesn't come to conclusions based upon reading the works of other authors, this man actually goes to archives, mosques, churches and other sources to reads things such as letters of introduction of emissaries between governments, debriefings of ambassadors, letters among family members and so forth to get to an understanding of the mindset of Muslims or at least their leaders in the past.

I found it stunning to find that the Muslim rejection of science and modernity is in his opinion the largest stumbling block of Muslims and he lays out a logical case that I have yet to see refuted.

 

[beancounter13]

The only kind of cataclysmic even Iran can trigger at this time would be a hand-carried atomic weapon smuggled into a place like Tel Aviv.


..or Dallas, Los Angeles, or New York. Why think "small"? If the Iranian nut wanted to bring about the end of the world, why would he worry about Israel? His proxy army stocked with nukes is enough for the "Little Satan" --he can focus his attention on the "Great Satan".

Only time will tell, but I will not be surprised if we see multiple detonations both here and in the Middle East. I have long ago concluded that he has his nukes --his rhetoric is more than just a bluff.

[Elsiejay]

What do you think counts as "success" in the mind of the Iranian madman?
Why do you believe there would be a response in kind, a response that would wreak devastation on the people of Iran, by Israel and/or the U.S.? Since a threat (unstated but imagined) of such a response will not deter Ahmadinejad, what would be its purpose?
I am hard pressed to countenance the possibility that any U.S. president would nuke Iran for any reason. The people of Iran are, in large part, helpless pawns of radical Islamic clerics they did not elect, for whom their "president" serves as a willing front man.

[bassmaner]

What do you think counts as "success" in the mind of the Iranian madman?

Like I stated: a premature ceasefire in Lebanon and a U.S. bugout of Iraq. Such a turn of events would allow Iran to claim a sphere of influence across a swath of the Middle East from Afghanistan to the Mediterranian Sea, which they could spin throughout the Muslim world as a huge victory over the infidels.

I am hard pressed to countenance the possibility that any U.S. president would nuke Iran for any reason.

I don't think we would need to nuke Iran (unless they nuke us, which I believe is very unlikely). But it's clear that we have lost our nerve to act pre-emptively to prevent Iran from obtaining nukes. The American Left, starting with Jimmy Carter, bears much of the blame for this. If (God forbid) Iran gets the bomb and uses it, our wannabe Stalinists in the DemonRat Party will have the blood of millions on their hands.

[ClaireSolt]

Yes, Lewis is interesting. It needs to be seen in conection with that Harvard gal's (Jessica Stern?) analysis that "humiliation" motivates terrorists. She probably counsel's appeasement. I think "ocupation" is their big gripe, and they hafe been ocupied since Alexander the Great. They have developed huge pathologies during all that time of oppression. However, that is all beside the point. Either they learn civilized ways or they cannot participate imn the world community. In fact, there are lots who have read Lock and Rousseau as our founders did.

Right now I am reading Kaplan, Imperial Grunts. It is very interesting on special forces fighting the war on terror all over.

[Dajjal]

Some prelates have taken "Gog and Magog" to mean "the Communists and the Capitalists." Osama Bin Ladin has taken credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union after the fighting in Afghanistan depleted their treasury and their will.

He and other terrorists think that the next logical step is to cause the downfall of the Western Capitalist nations.

Since the Hadith predict that the Mahdi will be victorious against Gog and Magog, they believe their is no chance of them losing. And since there is No Future anyway, why not go out as a suicide bomber in the Mahdi's army.

Many prelates even teach that if nuclear weapons are used, Allah, who can do anything, will bend the laws of physics so that only infidels will die, and all Muslims will survive. Even the architecture (e.g., Dome of the Rock), they say, would survive a nuclear blast, so the post-Armageddon Muslims could live happily under the world-rule of the Mahdi.

For serious information about Muslim End-Times beliefs, go to my FR homepage and my links page.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel.

also Keywords 2006israelwar or WOT [War on Terror]

----------------------------

I'm going to have a good dinner August 21 just in case. Who knows what will happen on flying horse day. Wonder if the horse was a virgin?

[Quix]

There are lots of scenes/Acts in the END TIMES play. I don't think anyone has it all figured out, yet.

[Quix]

An interesting question is . . . how many . . . of such forces are

AIMED WITH US

VS

AIMED AGAINST US.

[Quix]

The simple answer is you can't negotiate with him. Pre-emptive action is all that is available to us.
= = = =

I tend to agree a lot.

[gathersnomoss]

..."If so, what should the U.S. do to protect Americans and our ally?"

Get an E'fing grip on reality...NOW!

[Quix]

I have long ago concluded that he has his nukes --his rhetoric is more than just a bluff.
= = = =

I agree. He only wants to increase his production capacity so he can control how many he has, himself.

[gathersnomoss]

Bush had better be ready to convert the Middle East into a glass donut, now. This is not 9/10!

[flynmudd]

The people of Iran are, in large part, helpless pawns of radical Islamic clerics they did not elect, for whom their "president" serves as a willing front man.

So were the people in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

[Stultis]

A little Prozac blended into the public water supplies and wells would go a long way toward resolving this.

That's easy. I mean the Jews are already putting that stuff in the Arabs' water that shrinks their pee-pees.

[muawiyah]

ROTFLMAO ~ no doubt.

[Stultis]

Wonder if the horse was a virgin?

Yeah. And damn jealous of the goats and camels.

[DarthVader]

We can blast everyone of our enemies off the earth with enough to spare.

[Quix]

I hope so. Not what I was told in 1970. Was told by folks who should have known that we didn't have enough to deal with all the targets in China alone.

[Accygirl]

Whelp... considering what we just found out today, I think that we can figure out what Hitler was talking about. The Iranians have been supporting Al Qaeda and likely knew about 9/11 and the newest plot; it's high time that we take out Iran.

[dmartin]

Wonder if the horse was a virgin?

Not after Mohammad got a hold of it.

[DarthVader]

We didn't have the Ohio class SSBN's in the 1970's. They are the most powerful weapons platforms in human history. One to two subs can devastate China.

[M. Espinola]

If today's foiled mass airline slaughter is an example of what the enemy has planned, we should strike Iran and Syria now, not after more 9-11's!