In 2006 Bernard Lewis wrote in the Wall Street Journal   : "In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning. At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead--hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, MAD [mutual assured destruction] is not a constraint; it is an inducement."    

 In the Jerusalem Post last Friday Harold Rhode, ex Pentagon official, wrote: "We had a doctrine with the Soviets of mutually assured destruction; that does not work with these people. These people, some of them have claimed that they had talked with the imam, and [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad has said that he has seen the imam. This is stuff that Khomeini thought was wild and dangerous. These are the people running the country now. "

Only last week, in an interview for the New York Times, asked about the escalating confrontation with Iran, President Obama said he was now convinced that "the current course they're on would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities," though he gave no timeline.

I find it disturbing that apart from Bernard Lewis and John Bolton, Harold Rhode is the only other voice warning of the dangers of the ineffectiveness of MAD when it comes to the Iranian regime.

Yet, most Israelis, let alone the rest of the world, have never heard of the Mahdi, the hidden Twelfth Imam and are not familiar with Shi'a eschatology. Should not they know more about the beliefs of the regime which has several times announced it will wipe Israel off the map?      

The ineffectiveness of MAD vis-à-vis Iran should be headline news.  Save for the Israeli preemptive strike, the fate of millions of people in Israel and Iran rests on a doctrine the validity of which is in question and the discussion about which is nonexistent. 

Will the 36 heads of state and delegations from 10 other countries meeting at the nuclear security summit now taking place in Washington DC devote one minute of their time to the validity of MAD and Iran?