Ghostly Shadows

By JOHN BATCHELOR
August 4, 2006

How bloody-minded are the tyrants of Tehran? How far will they go in supporting their Hezbollah and Hamas legions against the Jewish State? Will they fight to the death of Lebanon and Gaza, or will they see the grave risk in their imperial overreach, using their uncertain ally Syria (and secret dupe Egypt) as an arms depot, and negotiate an armistice with the U.N. Security Council's proxies, the European legions?

The answer is not in the headlines, it's in the drama and history of the Shiites of the ummah known as the Twelvers. They believe profoundly and mystically in heroic martyrdom to gain Paradise. The legend of the self-sacrifice of the seventh century warlord Husayn at Kufa, the Lord of the Martyrs, Sayyid al-Shuhada, is well known. More up to date is a frightening tale from late in 1980, when secular Iraq occupied Iran's oil-rich Khuzistan province at the start of the eight-year long Iran-Iraq war.

The Khomeini-inspired revolution had purged Iran's officer cadre. The Tehran regime was without resources internally, and no help was coming from Europe or America because of the embassy hostage crisis. Desperation made the regime send tens of thousands of poorly armed volunteers to the front lines to face Iraqi armor. Catastrophe was imminent, and still Tehran would not relent or negotiate. Instead, the Council of Guardians — a governance invented by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — approved theatrics based upon Shia faith. Actors dressed in white robes rode white horses around the Iranian encampments late at night, and the pious recruits saw this display as proof of their commitment to martyr themselves.

The white-robed horseman was a vision of the Twelfth Imam, Muhammed al-Mahdi, who died, or vanished, at age five in the ninth century. The Twelfth, or Invisible, Imam is prophesied to return in times of extreme ruin to lead the faithful to paradise. And so the young men rose up at dawn and threw themselves like human torches at the Iraqi fortifications and, dying in the tens of thousands, drove heavy Soviet and American supported divisions out of Iran.

Worshippers of the Twelfth Imam are knows as the Twelvers; and chief among them is Ahmadinejad and the leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Before the revolution, Ahmadinejad belonged to a messianic cult known as Hojjatieh, later disbanded, which believed that chaos will hasten the return of the Mahdi. Today, such extreme conviction is shot through the Tehran regime, especially among the privy council called the Partisans of the Mahdi; and the televising of the combat on the Lebanon front looks to vindicate the prophesy.

When Ahmadinejad says, "Lebanon is the scene of an historic test, which will determine the future of humanity," he is speaking not in the hyperbole of a tyrant but in the language of messianic faith.

What this means now is that the Tehran regime is neither surprised nor intimidated by the scale of the Israeli response to the provocations in Gaza and Lebanon. Tehran expects that the missiles they have deployed in Syria and Lebanon, once they walk them like a barrage onto Tel Aviv, will force the Israelis into bombing the launchers and depots in Syria. The Iranians expect that when Syria is attacked, the other Arab states, such as Shia- dominated Iraq or Bahrain or Shia-fraught Saudi Arabia, will bend to their will. (And the secular, non-Shia tyrannies such as Egypt and Pakistan, will heed the call of alliance from the Egyptian al-Zawahiri.) Tehran expects that America will not be able to remain out of the fighting once Israel is battered and isolated, once the United Nations Security Council is provoked by Iran's expected quitting of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, perhaps in August.

When you read of the overwhelming IDF combined arms force thrown against the Hezbollah fortifications along the Lebanon border, do not be heartened that all is contained, do not think that ten more days of this will bring Iran and its servants to the negotiating table. Instead look for ghostly shadows on the night vision surveillance images around the Hezbollah, Iraqi, Saudi, Iranian, Chechen encampments on the Lebanon front. See the white robes on the white horse? Ahmadinejad sees, the Partisans of the Mahdi see, the Twelvers see, and they will get up in the morning and throw themselves like torches on Israel and America.

Mr. Batchelor is host of "The John Batchelor Show" on the ABC radio network. The show airs in New York on 770 AM from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.