The choice of Mash'had is not accidental. The city is located 1,000 km from Tehran and thus as far as possible inside Iran from American fire power in Iraq and the Gulf. The US is also expected to shrink from attacks against the Mash'had bunker for fear of collateral damage to the "holy shrine" of the imam a few hundred yards away.

The summer's comings-and-goings in Mash'had have provoked rumors that Khamenehi plans to appoint Abbas Va'ez Tabasi, the mulla who runs the eighth imam's foundation, as "deputy supreme guide", just in case!

The belief that the Americans would not attack sites close to "holy shrines' has also led to the creation of a massive new military base at Fadak, a suburb of the "holy city" of Qom where the eighth imam's sister is buried, south of Tehran. Work on the base that covers an area of 7.2 square km started in August.

Piecing together the bits of the jigsaw one may guess the outline of Tehran's scenario for what it believes is an inevitable clash with the US:

• The diplomatic tussle over Iran's nuclear plans goes to the Security Council that will fail to take a decision thanks to Russian and Chinese vetoes.

• The US, after much huffing and puffing launches air strikes against Iran's nuclear installations. (Tehran loves Israel to also participate because that would give the Islamic Republic a better claim to be fighting on behalf of Islam as a whole.)

• Iran retaliates by ordering the forces it controls inside Iraq to attack American and British troops. At the same time the Lebanese branch of the Hezbollah launches massive rocket attacks against Israel while Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, whose leaders spent the past month in Tehran meeting Khamenehi and his aides, organize a wave of suicide operations against Israel from Jerusalem and the West Bank.

• The US and its British allies, stationed in southern Iraq, launch a three-pronged attack, from Shalamcheh, Hamroun and Shatt Al-Arab to seize control of Khuzestan, the province that accounts for 70 percent of Iran's oil production.

Read this story....

The conversion of Abu Sufyan was a seminal event, that is not recognized as such by historians.

It was Abu Sufyan, aided by Quriash generals like Khalid-ibn-Walid, who had led the Meccan resistance to Mohammed and his cult of Islam. They were the ruling aristocracy of pre-Islamic Mecca, and they held Mohammed in contempt as an upstart. They resisted Mohammed till they physically could and even after their forced conversion, nursed a grudge against Mohammed. Herein lay the original root of the schism of the Muslims into Sunnis and Shias that was to come after 661 C.E. Abu Sufyan had converted to Islam, since there was on other way to save his life and honor. Since he could not beat Mohammed in the battlefield, he decided to outwit him, from within, by embracing Islam.

Abu Sufyan, the reluctant new convert returned to Mecca and told the Quraish that it was futile to resist Mohammed. On Abu Sufyan's advise, the Meccans realizing their hopeless plight, made a final attempt to ask Mohammed to lift the siege and resume negotiations. A demand scornfully rejected b Mohammed, who set the condition before the Quraish to surrender and accept Islam. The Meccans surrendered and Mohammed triumphantly marched into Mecca. In fact Mohammed chose the Arabic word for submission or surrender Islam as the name for his bloodied creed After the Meccans, millions all across the globe were to be forced to surrender this way to this ruthless creed, who name itself meant "to surrender".

For the Quriash of Mecca the game was over, they decided that if you cannot beat the Muslims, join them and be like them – cunning, untrustworthy, ruthless, rapacious and savage (all adjectives in the English language are inadequate to capture the bestiality of the Muslims). Countless others were to be made into beasts this way as the Islam began its bloodied march across Arabia and then into Persia, Byzantium, North Africa, Central Asia, India, Indonesia, Europe and in our times into America (9/11).

Read this story....