End of the world: new details available

Iran in general and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in particular have featured prominently in neocon obsessions about their plans to bring about the revelation of the Hidden Iman via a global apocalypse.

So the neocons should be freaking out about this photo of Ahmadinejad taken in Doha, Qatar, today Tehran yesterday before heading to Doha Qatar today where he was a surprise guest at an emergency Arab summit called to discuss the crisis in Gaza. Behind him is a sentence from the Old Testament and the Koran: "is not the morning nigh?". The sentence comes from the section of the holy books that deals with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the escape of Lot's family from it, except of course for Lot's wife who looks back at the city and is turned into a pillar of salt.

In an additional twist, given Ahmadinejad's claim that there are no gay people in Iran, those events are also critical to the Islamic perception of homosexuality, since a mob that shows up outside Lot's house the night before the destruction shows no interest in his virgin daughters. Strangely enough, with all this imminent doom, George Bush is on a 4 day vacation.

AP Photo/Vahid Salemi