“Oh Allah, give me the strength to hasten the return of the Promised One.”

That is an unusual request, particularly given the stage on which it was made. For the few ever given the opportunity to speak before world leaders at the UN General Assembly, the occasion is generally used to define and debate world problems, advance national foreign policy, garner support for humanitarian programs or request financial assistance.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is different. Given the opportunity, he has no compunction about standing before world leaders, bowing his head, and praying for the personal strength to usher in the return of the Promised One.

The belief of a returning Mahdi, or 12th imam, is a defining doctrine within the most populous group of Shiites (known as Ithna Ashari, or “Twelvers”), to which Ahmadinejad belongs. Iran’s president—who pines for the extermination of the Jewish state and is gunning for a nuclear arsenal—is a staunch adherent to the mahdaviat, which is “belief in and efforts to prepare for the Mahdi,” according to the Encyclopaedia of Islam.

Iran’s leader doesn’t just believe the Mahdi is about to return—he considers it his responsibility to cause the apocalyptic conditions that he believes will surround his return!

Think about this. Russia’s foreign policy is built around resurrecting the “glory” days of the Soviet empire; the Chinese are working to compete with and marginalize the United States; European states are vying for more of the spotlight. America is seeking to find its niche in a multipolar world. Japan, India and other powers are positioning themselves relative to broad geopolitical trends. Each of these goals, while motivated by self-interest, is based on real-world realities, not spiritual beliefs.

Meanwhile, the supreme goal and current policies of the Iranian government are designed to create Armageddon in preparation for the return of the 12th imam!

As Joel Rosenburg, former aide to Benjamin Netanyahu, put it recently, “[I]n order to bring about this Islamic messiah, the Mahdi, the 12th imam, Islamic leaders need to hasten his coming by destroying little Satan, Israel, and the great Satan, the United States. … [T]he leaders actually believe they need to create bloody carnage, the death of millions of people in order to create the conditions for the Mahdi to bring peace” (emphasis mine throughout).

Global carnage is the state-sponsored goal of the Iranian republic!

This aspiration permeates Iranian policy. “From redressing the gulf between rich and poor in Iran, to challenging the United States and Israel and enhancing Iran’s power with nuclear programs, every issue is designed to lay the foundation for the Mahdi’s return,”Scott Peterson wrote.

Amir Mohebian, political editor of the Islamic Resalat newspaper, discussed the influence of Ahmadinejad’s religion on his leadership: “This kind of mentality makes you very strong. … If you think these are the last days of the world, and [the Mahdi] will come [again], this idea will change all your relations.” Putting himself in Ahmadinejad’s shoes, Mohebian stated, “If I think the Mahdi will come in two, three or four years, why should I be soft? Now is the time to stand strong, to be hard.”

Ahmadinejad’s conviction is so firm that in 2004, when he was mayor of Tehran, he instructed the city council to build a “grand avenue” in preparation for the Mahdi’s return. When he became president in 2005, he allocated $17 million for a blue-tiled mosque in Jamkaran (south of the capital) closely associated with mahdaviat. Inside Iran, he’s quite literally preparing the ground on which he believes the Mahdi will return. His conviction is so strong that he prayed in front of the United Nations for Allah to help him hasten that event—which he could only do by precipitating a holocaust-type event!

And these same world leaders, with America in the lead, still want to negotiate and compromise with Iran? It’s illogical, foolish and, ultimately, suicidal.

Here’s how Charles Krauthammer summed up Iran under Ahmadinejad back in 2005:

[A] Holocaust-denying, virulently anti-Semitic, aspiring genocidist, on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons of the apocalypse, believes that the end is not only near but nearer than the next American presidential election. … This kind of man would have, to put it gently, less inhibition about starting Armageddon than a normal person.

The fact that Ahmadinejad’s candid and highly public display of loyalty to the quest for Armageddon is so widely ignored by world leaders is a testament to the degraded state of leadership in America and much of the West. The Obama administration, among others, seeks to harness the power of negotiation, diplomacy and appeasement with Iran. It won’t work. It can’t work.

This widely dismissed reality makes Iran’s nuclear program a much greater threat to world peace than even the current global economic crisis!

Iran’s nuclear program has been hot with activity in recent weeks. First, earlier this month, Iran launched its first satellite, sparking fear in the international community that Tehran is well on its way to developing its own intercontinental ballistic missiles (icbms), which could not only reach deep into Europe and even the United States, but could also transport a nuclear bomb!

Second, the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report last week indicating Iran has accumulated over a ton of low enriched uranium hexafluoride at its facility in Natanz. If enriched further, this quantity of uranium could yield more than 44 pounds of fissile material, which experts say would be enough for a nuclear bomb. “If Iran did decide to build nuclear weapons,” said David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security, then “it’s entering an era in which it could do so quickly.”

In an interview with the New York Times last week, Albright said Iran is nearing “nuclear breakout capability”—the point at which it could manufacture nuclear weapons in only a few months!

So while America and other Western nations dither on how best to deal with Iran, the Islamic Republic marches aggressively toward becoming a nuclear power. Just yesterday, nuclear authorities from Russia and Iran gathered in the port city of Bushehr to mark the conclusion of the construction phase of the Bushehr nuclear facility and participate in the first test-phases of the Russian-built plant. Iran already has 3,000 centrifuges at work; the start-up of the long-awaited Bushehr plant—signifying “independence day” for Iran according to one Iranian technician—will be another massive leap toward its stated goal of 50,000 centrifuges.

Nobody believes Iran when it says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Yet despite seeing through that lie, few recognize the fundamental purpose and full ramifications of Iran’s quest for nukes. Most dismiss the reality that Iran’s thriving nuclear program is meant to cement its dominance within the region and to hasten the realization of its supreme goal of creating an apocalypse in order to usher in the Mahdi!

This is a reality we deny at our own peril.

To learn more about Iran, and specifically where its apocalyptic ambitions will lead, read The King of the South.