For the Record': Iran Is Dangerous and an Immediate Threat To America

The P5+1 nuclear deal agreed with Iran was deeply controversial in the United States.

The major objection was that Iran represents a unique threat to the U.S. and the rest of the Western world. The Iranian leadership are driven by an extreme religious belief that celebrates a global apocalypse.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is a “Twelver Shia,” which means he believes that by leading the world into total chaos he would help usher the return of a Shia religious figure known as “the Twelfth Imam" and sometimes referred to as "the Mahdi."

Former CIA Director James Woolsey has studied the Iranian leaders and told TheBlaze TV, “We don’t have any way of convincing the leadership rationally that they should ignore their theological traditions of the Mahdi returning and leading the battles that would end the world, and that being a wonderful thing because they will all go to heaven and we will all go to hell from their point of view."

That extreme belief negates the Cold War philosophy that “mutually assured destruction” is the greatest deterrent of a nuclear Armageddon.

“It’s the theological dimension of the Iranian threat that I think is particularly troubling," Woolsey said, "because they would not care that we retaliated and a huge share of Iran were destroyed, Ayatollah Khamenei has made quite clear that that doesn’t matter at all."

That interview with Woolsey is featured on the For the Record episode “Within Range,” which airs Wednesday, Dec. 16, at 8:00 p.m. ET on TheBlaze TV.