THE AYATOLLAHS of Iran may not be as eager to use a nuclear weapon, if and when they get one, as we've been led to believe.
Dr. Timothy Furnish, expert on Islamic eschatology and author of Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden, explains that the Shia sect of Islam does not believe they can hasten the return of the Twelfth Imam, unlike Sunni Islam, which — in addition to rejecting the concept of the Twelfth Imam — hopes to provoke a cataclysmic war with the forces of Christendom. Further, they do not believe that victorious global jihad will occur before the Twelfth Imam returns from occultation.
This doesn't mean Iran is committed to peace in the Middle East, nor does it mean they don't want to have a nuclear arsenal. But maybe we can address the situation more effectively if we analyze it realistically. Click here to open Dr. Furnish's 2011 paper "A Western View on Iran’s WMD Goal: Nuclearizing the Eschaton, or Pre-Stocking the Mahdi’s Arsenal?"
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