...An ethos of infidel-hatred, including paroxysms of annihilationist fanaticism, has pervaded Persian/Iranian society, almost without interruption (i.e., the two major exceptions being Sunni Afghan rule from 1725-1794, and Pahlavi reign, with its Pre-Islamic revivalist efforts, from 1925-1979), since the founding of the Shi’ite theocracy in 1502 under Shah Ismail, through its present Khomeini-inspired restoration, since 1979.

Having returned their small remnant Jewish community to a state of obsequious dhimmitude—including now, perhaps the full restoration of discriminatory badging —Iran’s current theocratic rulers focus most of their obsessive anti-Jewish bigotry on the free-living Jews of neighboring Israel.

Former Iranian President Rafsanjani’s December 2001 “Al Quds Day” sermon threatened, explicitly, the nuclear annihilation of this largest concentration of autonomous Jews in history. Current President Ahmadinejad has reiterated these threats repeatedly as Iran’s nuclear ambitions near fulfillment. But Ahmadinejad has also reportedly vowed, “To stop Christianity in this country” [i.e., Iran] , and his recent “letter” to President Bush emulates the jihad war precept (originally formulated by the Muslim prophet Muhammad) of calling infidel powers—often Christian powers—to accept Islam, prior to initiating a jihad war against them.

The Iranian regime’s words and deeds are authentic manifestations of the hatred of jihad. Whether directed against internal or external “infidels” this is a potentially genocidal animus which must be understood in its Islamic context without meaningless and distracting invocations to modern Western forms of totalitarianism, like Nazism.