Winds of War: The Significance of August 22nd

Several weeks ago, Iran's Thug-In-Chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, responded to the EU’s and Americas proposal to cease Iran’s march towards nuclear weapons. His response?

He said it will come on August 22nd.

There’s been speculation in the bloggospher on the significance of that date. In a recent article at FrontPage Magazine, Robert Spencer, who first wrote about the August 22nd date, talks again about why Ahmadinejad would choose that day to respond to the offer.

“The Western governments had asked Ahmadinejad to reply by June 29; why would Tehran need two extra months? Farid Ghadry, the president of the Reform Party of Syria, has offered a provocative explanation for this delay. He asserts that the Supreme National Security Council of Iran chose the August 22 date “for a very precise reason. August 21, 2006 (Rajab 27, 1427) is known in the Islamic calendar as the Night of the Sira’a and Miira’aj, the night Prophet Mohammed (saas) ascended to heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a Bourak (Half animal, half man), while a great light lit-up the night sky, and visited Heaven and Hell also Beit al-Saada and Beit al-Shaqaa (House of Happiness and House of Misery) and then descended back to Mecca.…”

Is Ahmadinejad giving the West a warning?

“And now, according to Ghadry, Ahmadinejad is planning an illumination of the night sky over Jerusalem to rival the one that greeted the Prophet of Islam on his journey. What the Iranian President, he says, is “promising the world by August 22 is the light in the sky over the Aqsa Mosque that took place the night before. That is his answer to the package of incentives the international community offered Iran on June 6.” Certainly a nuclear attack on Jerusalem or even an all-out conventional assault against Israel by Iran would be consistent with Ahmadinejad’s oft-repeated denials of Israel’s right to exist and recent predictions that its demise was at hand. He hinted at the use of nuclear weapons in his phrasing when he said that Israel “pushed the button of its own destruction” by finally retaliating against Hizballah’s relentless rocket barrage from south Lebanon.”

Spencer warns:

“Will he attempt to make good on these threats this year on the anniversary of the Miraj, illuminating the night sky over Jerusalem?

We’ll see. We’ll see.