Tim Rutten in the LA Times:

You cannot change the totalitarian mind through dialogue or conversation, because totalitarianism — however ingenious the superstructure of faux ideas with which it surrounds itself — is a creature of the will and not the mind.

He’s right - it is a crucial understanding to have when dealing with Ahmadinejad or any other tyrant. After all, Hitler’s greatest propaganda film was entitled Triumph des Willens, or Triumph of the Will, not, “Triumph of Ideas.”

The Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned in London, has died in hospital. His final statement accused Russian President Vladimir Putin by name of ordering his murder.

In the statement, read out by his friend Alex Goldfarb outside University College Hospital, London, Mr Litvinenko said he had a “message to the person responsible for my present condition”.

“You may succeed in silencing me, but that silence comes at a price.

“You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed.”

“The howl of protest from around the world will reverberate Mr Putin in your ears for the rest of your life,” the statement added.

The statement was dictated on 21 November, when Mr Litvinenko realised he could die.

So far there is no actual evidence of a forensic nature linking Russia to Litvinenko’s death and his death is listed by UK authorities as “unexplained.” But,

Mr Litvinenko had recently been investigating the murder of his friend, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of the Putin government.

Russian dissident Oleg Gordievsky, a former KGB colonel and friend of Mr Litvinenko, maintained that the poisoning had been the work of the Russians.

The Russian security service had “sent a man with a poisonous pill to Britain”, put a pill into Mr Litvinenko’s tea and killed him, he told BBC News.

Intelligence analyst Glenmore Trenear Harvey said Mr Litvinenko had “made a lot of enemies” when he had been tasked with fighting corruption during his time with the Federal Security Service (FSB) - the KGB’s successor.

Remember: before the fall of the old Soviet state apparatus, Putin was head of the KGB, which morphed after the USSR dissolved into the FSB but was ruled by the same hands. So is Vladimir Putin “barbaric and ruthless” as Mr. Litvinenko accused? Well, consider:

Russia has begun deliveries of the Tor-M1 air defence rocket system to Iran, Russian news agencies quoted military industry sources as saying, in the latest sign of a Russian-US rift over Iran.

“Deliveries of the Tor-M1 have begun. The first systems have already been delivered to Tehran,” ITAR-TASS quoted an unnamed, high-ranking source as saying Friday. …

The Tor-M1 is a low to medium-altitude missile fired from a tracked vehicle against airplanes, helicopters and other airborne targets.

Expect the AA missiles to be deployed at Iran’s nuclear-weapon development sites right away. Barbaric? Ruthless? You decide.

Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency reports of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s claim that, “martyrdom-seeking is the only way to save mankind.”

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here on Wednesday that selflessness and martyrdom-seeking is the only way to save mankind, adding, “We are all obliged to keep alive the culture of martyrdom-seeking in the society.”

According to IRNA correspondent in Bushehr, Ahmadinejad made the remarks in a meeting with families of martyrs and war-disabled veteran of the province on Wednesday night at a religious center, adding, Culture of martyrdom-seeking is our most effective weapon and best guarantee for our national security.”

The President reiterated, “Ruthless enemies who have a chronic enmity against our country and our nation have not succeeded in achieving their objectives so far thanks to the existence of this culture of martyrdom-seeking among our nation.”

Further stressing that the attitude and culture of martyrdom-seeking is the best guarantee for a nation’s survival, he said, “He who is ready for martyrdom is always victorious.” Ahmadinejad reiterated, “Martyrdom is the peak of mankind’s perfection and the martyrs enjoy the highest status of humanity in this world and the Hereafter.”
He added, “People spend tough years of strenuous work in a bid to achieve the peaks of grandeur and pride, while our dear martyrs achieved those high peaks in shortest possible time.”

This is a man with some serious religious issues - he has an apocalyptic fixation. And he’s about to get nukes. The two don’t go together well. Arnaud de Borchgrave reported three days ago,

The man in charge of hoodwinking the Western powers about Iran’s now 18-year-old secret nuclear program believes the apocalypse will happen in his own lifetime. He’ll be 50 in October.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Shi’ite creed has convinced him lesser mortals can not only influence but hasten the awaited return of the 12th Imam, known as the Mahdi. Iran’s dominant “Twelver” sect holds this will be Muhammad ibn Hasan, the righteous descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. He is said to have gone into “occlusion” in the 9th century, at age 5. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war, bloodshed and pestilence. After this cataclysmic confrontation between the forces of good and evil, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.

“The ultimate promise of all Divine religions,” says Ahmadinejad, “will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being [the 12th Imam], who is heir to all prophets. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace. Oh mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one.” He reckons the return of the Imam, AWOL for 11 centuries, is only two years away.

Mr. Ahmadinejad is close to the messianic Hojjatieh Society, which is governed by the conviction the 12th Imam’s return will be hastened by “the creation of chaos on Earth.” He has fired Iran’s most experienced diplomats and scores of other officials, presumably those who don’t share his belief in apocalyptic conflagration.

Arnaud asks whether the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction can work against a nuclear-armed Iran. I’ll try to explore that question in a later post, but I’m not hopeful.