Ahmadinejad at the UN, “Stutxnet” and Esther

In the words of former President Ronald Reagan, “There he goes again!” Last month, Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared at the UN making his annual America-bashing speech to the delegates, and once again, as he has done each and every time he has spoken to the UN, he included a prayer for the appearance of the Mahdi. Most mass media outlets failed to cover this item, but the prayer was there, in fact, it was his opening line! “O Allah, hasten the arrival of Imam al-Mahdi and grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those who attest to his righteousness.” Those of you who follow my column know that I believe that the Mahdi, whom Muslims believe to be their messiah, will be the world leader whom the Bible refers to as “The Anti-Christ.” Ahmadinejad certainly believes in the soon appearance of the Mahdi and he is doing everything in his power to hasten that arrival, including the building of nuclear weapons and threatening to use them against Israel - plunging the world into chaos to bring forth the Mahdi. Here’s a link to the full transcript of Ahmadinejad’s UN remarks:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38037667/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-United-Nations-General-Assembly-FULL-Transcript

In spite of Ahmadinejad’s chilling words, an interesting thing has been happening inside Iran. Over the past few months their nuclear capabilities have taken an unexpected down-turn. The number of Iran’s operational centrifuges needed to enrich uranium to weapons-grade level has actually declined for the first time ever after years of steady growth. Has Iran bowed to international pressure and slowed their hell-bent pace towards the bomb? Hardly. It seems a computer worm, a mal-ware virus known as “stutxnet” has infected their enrichment computers! Over 30,000 Iranian computers are now infected with this bug which has knocked nearly 1/3 of their centrifuges off-line. This might be the work of hackers, but more likely it is a targeted attack on the Iranian nuclear program. But from whom? The CIA? The Israeli Mossad? The stutxnet virus has infected computers from other countries as well, with some infections taking place before it hit Iran, but it seems to have been intentionally planted in the Iranian atomic plants much like the virus that knocked out the alien enemy in the sci-fi movie “Independence Day” or its literary fore-runner from several decades ago, H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds!

Of course, no one is taking credit for this attack….at least not overtly! Many prognosticators, including me, have been predicting an Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear sites before now. Why hasn’t it come? Perhaps they know something we don’t. Maybe Israel already attacked them from the inside! Virus experts have analyzed the computer code in this worm and noted that one of the main “files” in the code is named “Myrtus.” Myrtus is the latin root from which we get our English word myrtle – the fragrant plant. Why is that interesting? You may remember a beautiful Jewish girl named Esther who became a queen and foiled a Persian (Iranian) plot to wipe out all the Jews? Her Hebrew name was Hadassah, which is the Hebrew word for…. myrtle! Too far a stretch? Maybe not. One thing is sure, this “cyber” attack, wherever it came from, seems to have worked beautifully, it has given Israel (and us all) more time and it has not cost a single life nor endangered a single soldier, sailor or airman. Now that’s a miracle worthy of Esther!

Ahmadinejad is working with all his might to speed the coming of his messiah. Are we speeding the coming of ours? “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.” (2Peter 3:10-12a)

Source: The New York Times, “In a Computer Worm, Possible Biblical Clue.” Markoff and Sanger, Sept. 29, 2010