By Joel C. Rosenberg

(WASHINGTON, D.C., September 24, 2009) -- President Obama's first address to the United Nations General Assembly was not just a disappointment, it was dangerous.

Weak on Iran. Hard on Israel. Virtually silent on Afghanistan.

The President effectively called for Israel's capital city of Jerusalem to be divided, for Israel itself to be divided, and proposed no enforcement mechanism to stop Iran from getting the Bomb. This will only encourage the Radicals from Gaza City to Tehran.

Ahmadinejad's speech was also dangerous, in a different way. The tone was low-key, quiet, deceitfully tame -- it was clear he didn't want to make splashy, provocative headlines this time around. The speech was aimed at temporarily mollifying critics (or at least not giving them fresh ammunition against him), and buying time so the West doesn't act decisively and Iran can finish building nuclear weapons without interference. What's so dangerous is this strategy is likely to work.

Noteworthy was that he didn't end his address with a prayer to Allah asking him to hasten the coming of the Islamic Messiah, known as the "Twelfth Imam," or the "Mahdi," or the "just and promised One" as he did in 2005 and 2006. Nor did he open the speech by praying for the Allah to hasten the coming of the Islamic messiah, as he did in 2007. That said, Ahmadinejad's address contained more references to the coming of the Mahdi than any of the others, including his 2008 speech which did build on this theme. He referred twice to the Shia Islamic eschatological notion of "entezar." This is the capacity for a Shia Muslim to wait patiently for the coming of the Islamic Messiah.
 

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