Ahmadinejad Magic Show

"The provocations of his New York visit are an integral part of his domestic political strategy, which depends on his ability to hold America's national attention with an unapologetically nationalist message about Iran's nuclear rights, lecturing them about God and their aim to run the world." ~ Tony Karon, TIME

Ahmadinejad's visit to New York invokes, for me, memories of Kruschev pounding his shoe on the U.N. podium back in the '50's saying, "We will bury you!"

Of course, there was no mistaking Kruschev's message: but Ahmadinejad is a bit more subtle in his conciliatory rhetoric. You get the feeling you are watching an elusive doppleganger of the man from Iran. There is a cognitive disconnect here: an illusion. This is the Ahmadinejad Magic Show.

He may be the next candidate for Antichrist in some Christian circles ~ the man of peace, fooling the world into thinking he is a savior of sorts.

Politicians and world leaders can develop chimerical personas: appearing as one thing in one place and as another somewhere else, shape-shifting. It's real shifty. Ahmadinejad seems to be learning these Ninja secrets.

He was under fire from questioners about the Holocaust, 9-11, Israel, nuclear research, and his country's known executions of homosexuals. It is obvious that he is evasive on these issues, derailing difficult questions using a shield of innocence and deflecting the accusations to some other target. He is also using global news to position himself for the next elections in Iran where more moderate leaders are waiting in the wings for his job.

Won't it confuse Iranians, though, the way he lambasts Israel and announces the annihilation of Jews in his homeland; and the way he has threatened the deployment of nuclear weapons, only to show the West this completely contradictory face? In the end, we may simply be looking at another political opportunist; but that is not to say he isn't dangerous.

And there is the possibility that he will amend his thinking as some leaders have done in the past. A visit to America can be impressive. A man used to running an oppressive Islamic regime can be inoculated with a small dose of freedom and actually desire that for his own people.

Islam, and particularly its more radical forms, is a legalistic religion. In fact, it gains some of its vigor from a kind of nationalistic pride in being better than everybody else. These are people who are subjected to a kind of rigorous religious discipline that has certain psychological effects on people: they view themselves as morally excellent and sacrificially good. They are close to Allah. It is a recipe for megalomania.

It is also a recipe for hypocrisy. People just aren't that morally upright in all ways. So the Arab women put on their burqas in the daylight but come home and experiment with Western fashion. There is always that outward show but an inward tendency to the very degeneracy they pretend to despise. This is just the dynamic of any imposed legalistic system of religion. It breeds hypocrites.

And political leaders are often hypocrites by profession. Discerning people have just had a taste of that served to them by Ahmadinejad. It is like meeting a charming psychotic. Maybe he will just disappear off the scene before we learn to pronounce his name. What was it again? Abracadabra?