Last week Iran put its own telecommunications satellite into orbit. U.S. officials in the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon were certainly right to warn that this shows that the mullahs have now mastered the technology needed to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles. But the terror masters in Tehran believe the satellite has an even greater significance -- another step toward the return of the Shiite messiah, or Mahdi, the long-vanished 12th Imam.
AP
Many Iranian leaders believe that the 12th Imam will return in the Last Days, which will be marked by global chaos and conflict, at the end of which Muslim believers will have conquered the infidels and the mullahs will rule the world. According to medieval Shiite texts, a message announcing the Mahdi's return will be carried to the four corners of the world so that none will be able to say he did not know that the Last Days were soon to arrive.
Eerily, the rocket that carried the telecommunications satellite into space was named "Safir" (message) and the satellite itself "Omid" (hope). In short order we can expect to hear Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announcing the imminent return of the Mahdi. He has already described the launch as a "holy event." These believers see the launch of Omid as the fulfillment of the Mahdi prophecy.
They see other portents as well. The ancient Shiite texts forecast that the seas will turn blood red just prior to the return of the Mahdi, and lo and behold some Iranian newspapers are reporting a rapid growth of red seaweed in the Persian Gulf. To this, the believers add the economic convulsion of the West, the defeat of the hated neocons in the recent U.S. elections, the failure of the West to stop the Iranian nuclear program, and what they insist was the heroic victory of Hamas in Gaza. The mullahs are desperately trying to convince their restive citizens, and perhaps even themselves, that t