US President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad may be coming from opposite ends of the social, political and religious spectrum; nevertheless, the two men may have much more in common than either of them would ever care to admit.
Both Bush and Ahmadinejad are religious men; both presidents often refer to their holy books for guidance in public life. Bush often quotes psalms from the Bible, or delivers a sentence with all the authority of someone who knows he has God squarely on his side. Just as Ahmadinejad cites verses from the Koran, invoking the name of Allah, believing that he too is on the side of right.
Bush: "In crisis it is not enough to be right and true - America must rise to serve as God's champion."
Ahmadinejad: "We believe that atomic energy is a blessing given by God."
But somewhat more worrisome is when either Bush or Ahmadinejad start believing that God talks back to them. Bush believes in Armageddon - when God will return to right the wrongs and when good will triumph over evil. Bush believes America has a great role to play in that respect. Many Christians, particularly the fundamentalists, believe the Apocalypse will reveal the second coming of Christ. Likewise, Ahmadinejad also believes, as many Shiite Muslims do, in the return of the missing 12th imam. The two events are in fact quite similar.
In short, both leaders adhere to the belief that the end of the physical world will bring redemption in the next life. Keep those facts in mind for later.
Ever since the fall of Baghdad in April 2003 a number of political observers inside the Washington beltway suspected that a military confrontation with Iran would be next. Regime change was the order of the day, and more recently, tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic have grown to dangerous levels over Iran's nuclear program.
But suddenly, in the last week or so, the level of rhetoric between Washington and Tehran seems to have cooled down a notch or two.
"It's in suspension," said George Vlahos of Johns Hopkins University, referring to the tension that existed between Iran and the United States only a few days earlier.
However, should whatever secret back-door channels working towards bridging the divide between Iran and the United States break down, and should the Bush administration contemplate military intervention, the timing could not be worse. Relations between Christian and Muslim communities are at an all-time low.
In recent years Christians and Muslims have become highly suspicious of each other. Muslims began questioning the logic and motives behind the arrests and detention of hundreds of their co-religionists in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And Christians feared that Muslims, or at least a certain movement within Islam, want to re-establish the caliphate.
Then came the US invasion of Iraq, and President Bush's now infamous phrase that the West was engaged in a "crusade." A bad choice of words from the commander in chief. Needless to say, the history of the crusader wars did not leave fond memories in the collective minds of many Muslims.
A number of incidents did little to help cool tempers, such as the publication last November in a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed. The fallout from the publication of these cartoons caused mayhem around the world.
Muslims took to the streets, burning and ransacking Western diplomatic missions from Damascus to Islamabad. A number of European newspapers reacted by publishing the offensive cartoons, saying it was a matter of freedom of speech. The result was often more anti-European demonstrations and a total ban on all Danish products in the Arab world.
Then only last week Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech at Regensburg University in his native Germany in which he cited an obscure 14th century Byzantine emperor who had castigated some of the teaching of Mohammed the Prophet as "evil and inhuman," especially his command to spread the Muslim faith "by the sword."
It did not take long before his words resonated around the Islamic world, from Morocco to Indonesia, from Turkey to the tip of the Arabian peninsula. And despite repeated communiqués from the Vatican and the Pope himself saying that he was "deeply sorry," Morocco and the Islamic Republic of Iran recalled their ambassadors to the Vatican.
But let's get back to Iran and its nuclear program. A strike by American forces against the Islamic Republic, especially if it came during the holy month of Ramadan - which starts next Sunday - would dissipate any doubt in much of the Islamic world that a second crusade is well underway.
Says Michael Vlahos of Johns Hopkins University: "In times of crisis, moreover, the resolution of crisis takes on frankly apocalyptic overtones in the religiously infused over- and undertones of the US political debate. Apocalypse is not simply destruction. It imagines, at the end of destruction, both the defeat of evil and the deliverance of good."
Again, this is a statement both Bush and his Iranian counterpart will most likely agree with.
Claude Salhani is Middle East Times' Editor and International Editor at UPI. He wrote this article for United Press International. Comments may be sent to claude@upi.com
Commentary: Road to Armageddon
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