This is from the Media Blog on National Review Online:

Addressing the U.N. General Assembly yesterday in a speech again televised live by major news networks the world over (as was his speech at Columbia on Monday), Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the "the people of America and Europe will be free of the pressures exerted by Zionists."

The "era of darkness will end," he announced, and the world would soon have a "bright future" ushered in by the "return" of the 12th imam, a messianic figure in Shia Islam.

"Without any doubt, the Promised One who is the ultimate Savior will come. The pleasing aroma of justice will permeate the world," he said.

On many times in the past when speaking in Farsi in Iran, Ahmadinejad has said he needs to "hasten the imam’s return" through a "great thunder."

Part 2. A visual guide to the pleasing aroma of justice

This poor fellow was impaled, speared and clubbed (and I suppose eventually lit on fire for good measure).

Part 3. The Narrative

"For those unacquainted with the more obscure tenets of Islamic theology, the 12th Imam is held by devout Shi'ite Muslims to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed who went into "occlusion" in the ninth century at the age of five and hasn't been seen since.

The Hidden Imam, as he is also known by his followers, will only return after a period of cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed – what Christians call the Apocalypse – and then lead the world into an era of universal peace."

Source

Labels: end times, iran