The Ted Bundy of the Middle East

People are always fascinated by serial killers. How, they ask, could Ted Bundy have managed to convince so many women to trust him long enough for him to kill them? True, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, does not have the good looks of Bundy and he lacks the charm that enabled Bundy to murder dozens of victims.

Mahmoud, though, possesses or is possessed by the same passion for death that Bundy had. Like Bundy, who choose to defend himself when tried for murder, he has a gift for telling people what they want to hear while, if you only knew his demons and duplicity, the same words would cry out, “Beware! He intends to kill you!”

Mahmoud’s speech on September 19, 2006 to the General Assembly of the United Nations was his defense of Iran and an indictment of the United States and Israel. Like so many Muslims throughout the Middle East, Mahmoud feels he has lived under the boot of the West, defeated, oppressed, and humiliated.

Mahmoud, along with Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the handful of ayatollahs who run Iran, plan to redress those ills. When you take your marching orders direct from Allah, there is no need to play by the international rules and Islam has a concept called “taqiya” that sanctions dissembling to achieve one’s goals. Thus, nothing that passes for diplomacy by Iran should be trusted.

One suspects that only a handful of analysts at the State Department and CIA bothered to read Mahmoud’s speech. It is a tendentious collection of platitudes and lies, but it does reveal something of how the man sees the world.

Permit me to spare you the details and just hit the highlights of his UN speech. It is essential to understand that Mahmoud believes himself to be God’s representative on Earth. His speech was filled with concern for the “oppressed” people of the world and their “longing for peace.”  Unfortunately for some of those people, Iran has been funding Hezbollah and other activities that, for example, started the most recent war with Israel. Iran is behind the brutal killings of Iraqis with the intention of initiating a Civil War that would allow them to step in and virtually annex Iraq.

When it comes to nuclear weapons, Mahmoud asked, “are these weapons, in fact, instruments of coercion and threat against other peoples and governments?” Apparently the answer is yes because he and his cohorts have been laboring for over twenty years to acquire the technology to build their own.

In February 2003, Iranian authorities opened their secret plants to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors. On September 24, 2004, the IAEA issued a report that was a litany of Iranian lies and declared Iran in breach of its signature to the Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement.

According to Mahmoud, “All our nuclear activities are transparent, peaceful and under the watchful eyes of IAEA inspectors.”

Replicating the same tactics of the former president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, in early 2006, Iran turned IAEA inspectors away from its nuclear facilities in Natanz. In his UN speech, however, Mahmoud asked “are the inhabitants of these countries (with nuclear weapons) content with the waste of their wealth and resources for the production of such destructive arsenals?” If they are neighbors with Iran, apparently the answer is yes.

Mahmoud then turned his attention to the “occupiers” of Iraq, i.e., the United States, but never named, and the territory identified as Palestine, i.e., the Israelis. Never mind that the U.S. invaded Iraq a second time to remove Saddam Hussein or that Israel withdrew from Gaza to facilitate recognition of an indigenous government there.

As far as Mahmoud was concerned, Israelis—descendents of the prophets to whom Islam also lays claim—have no historic claim to their homeland, nor any right to have reestablished it following a Holocaust he denies ever occurred!

Israel whose landmass constitutes less than one percent of the entire area of the Middle East, “has been a constant source of threat and insecurity in the Middle East region…” This is such a ludicrous statement it defies the reality of the constant attacks perpetrated against Israel since it declared independence more than a half century ago. Only this year, agents of Hezbollah and Hamas killed and kidnapped Israeli soldiers.

As for the United States of America, “They consider themselves the masters and rulers of the entire world and other nations as only second class in the world order.” Mahmoud turned his attention to the United Nations, decrying the actions of the Security Council, asking “Is it appropriate to expect this generation to submit to the decisions and arrangements established over half a century ago?”  One suspects he thinks the answer is “no.”

Finally, this man who believes that the Twelfth Imam must return to Earth in order to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate, spoke of “the perfect human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.” To achieve this paradise on Earth, millions of infidels—unbelievers—will have to die.

He ended by calling on “Almighty God” to bring forth this Islamic savior “and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause.” The Ted Bundy of the Middle East has some terrible things in mind for mankind.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column, “Warning Signs”, posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. His book, “Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy”, has just been published by Merril Press.

© Alan Caruba, 2006

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