Seemingly annoyed that Americans are no longer focusing on him but, instead, on their own elections, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has decided to draw attention to himself once again by ‘predicting’ that Muslims will “uproot Satanic powers” and that Israel will “disappear” soon.

“I must announce that the Zionist regime, with a 60-year record of genocide, plunder, invasion and betrayal is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene,” the man who believes that the Mahdi will soon return told a group of foreigners ‘ahead of the 19th anniversary of the death of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’. “Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started.”

This is, of course, far from the first time that Ahmadinejad has, basically, threatened Israel with destruction. Last year he said that Israel would be “wiped off the map,” a statement not exactly celebrated and welcomed in the West either.

The Mahdi is a mythical Shiite Muslim, who walked into a cave hundreds of years ago, only to come out when the day of judgment is near. According to Ahmadinejad that is.

The problem with Ahmadinejad isn’t that he’s an extremist. Nor that he likes to fantasize and talk about the end of the world and the end of Israel. It’s that he is in the position – or almost in the position – to put his ideas and fantasies into practice: he may very well decide to declare war on Israel, especially if he gets his hands on nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, his domestic critics say that, instead of scaring the world (and Iranians) with all this talk about a major war between Good and Evil (in his eyes), he should try to solve Iran’s serious domestic problems.

Quite right.