Uranium Mining and Exploration

[oasdihf]

Even in the worst case scenario...

On New Years Day Fox News had a panel of various experts provide predictions for 2006 and one of these characters (forget who sorry) predicted Israel would attack Iran's Nuclear facilities. He also predicted that Pittsburg would win the Super Bowl so it'd be reassuring if the Colts can turn it around in the 2nd half today (currently 14-3 Steelers at halftime).

Iran's new president has repeatedly stated that Israel should be "wiped out from the map," insisting that a new series of attacks is necessary to destroy the Jewish state.

Even in the worst case scenario, I personally don't see it having any impact on the uranium investments we discuss on this board - even if it did it doesn't change the long-term fundamentals and would simply provide a buying opportunity for those waiting on the sidelines.

The following article was released a few hours ago and is an eye-opener for those who haven't followed the Iranian developments.

Iran may be seeking apocalypse now
Email Print Normal font Large font By Anton La Guardia in London
January 16, 2006

AS IRAN rushes towards confrontation with the world over its nuclear program, the question uppermost in the mind of Western leaders is: "What is moving its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to such recklessness?"

Political analysts point to the fact that Iran feels strong because of high oil prices, while the United States has been weakened by the insurgency in Iraq. But listen carefully to the utterances of Mr Ahmadinejad and there is another dimension, a religious messianism that, some suspect, is giving the Iranian leader a dangerous sense of divine mission.

When an aircraft crashed in Tehran last month, killing 108 people, Mr Ahmadinejad thanked the dead, saying: "What is important is that they have shown the way to martyrdom which we must follow."

The most remarkable aspect of his piety is his devotion to the Hidden Imam, the Messiah-like figure of Shiite Islam, and the President's belief that his Government must prepare the country for his return.

One of the first acts of his Government was to donate about $A23 million to the Jamkaran mosque, a popular pilgrimage site where the pious come to drop messages to the Hidden Imam.

All streams of Islam believe in a divine saviour, known as the Mahdi, who will appear at the end of days, similar to the Christian vision of the apocalypse. Mr Ahmadinejad appears to believe that these events are close at hand and that ordinary mortals can influence the divine timetable.

The prospect of such a man obtaining nuclear weapons is worrying. The unspoken question is this: is Mr Ahmadinejad now tempting a clash with the West because he feels safe in the belief of the imminent return of the Hidden Imam? Worse, might he be trying to provoke chaos in the hope of hastening his reappearance?

The 49-year-old president, a former member of the Revolutionary Guards and mayor of Tehran, overturned Iranian politics after unexpectedly winning presidential elections last June.

The main rift is no longer between reformists and hardliners, but between the clerical establishment and Mr Ahmadinejad's brand of revolutionary populism and superstition. Its most remarkable manifestation came with his international debut at the United Nations.

World leaders had expected a conciliatory proposal to defuse the nuclear crisis after Tehran had restarted another part of its nuclear program in August. Instead, they heard Mr Ahmadinejad speak in apocalyptic terms of Iran struggling against an evil West that sought to promote "state terrorism", impose "the logic of the dark ages" and divide the world into "light and dark countries".

The speech ended with the messianic appeal to God to "hasten the emergence of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace".

In a video distributed by an Iranian website in November Mr Ahmadinejad described how one of his colleagues had claimed to have seen a glow of light around him as he began his speech.

"I felt it myself too," Mr Ahmadinejad recounts. "I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink … It's not an exaggeration, because I was looking."

Western officials said the real reason for any open-eyed stares from delegates was that "they couldn't believe what they were hearing from Ahmadinejad".

Their sneaking suspicion is that he relishes a clash with the West in the conviction that it would rekindle the spirit of the Islamic revolution and speed up the arrival of the Hidden Imam.

http://smh.com.au/news/world/iran-may-be-seeking-apocalypse-now/2006/01/15/1137259944355.html