Is Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad lead by divine intervention? It’s hardly uncommon for people to believe their chosen deity helps influence their decisions, but Ahmadinejad feels there was a heavenly light shone upon him while he delivered a speech at the United Nations.

According to Ahmadinejad, a member of the United Nations told him of a great light surrounding him to which he later confirmed.

“He said when you began with the words ‘in the name of God,’ I saw that you became surrounded by a light until the end [of the speech],” Ahmadinejad appears to say in the video. “I felt it myself, too. I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there, and for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink.”

Ahmadinejad adds that he is not exaggerating.

“I am not exaggerating when I say they did not blink; it’s not an exaggeration, because I was looking,” he says. “They were astonished as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic.” (source)

That was not a divine light, that’s how the United Nations is built to shine a light upon the speakers. Stage direction left. Perhaps no one blinked because they couldn’t believe he was granted a visa to enter the United States or they couldn’t believe what he was actually saying?

What’s interesting about this statement is that there are Islamic clerics who have repeatedly attacked Ahmadinejad for his set of beliefs. There is a rumor circulating that he believes he is the 12th Imam, “who according to Muslims has disappeared and will return at the end of time to lead an era of Islamic justice,” or that he is preparing for the 12th Imam’s return to civilization. Don’t fear though, the 12th Imam might be hidden in a well near Qom, Iran where Ahmadinejad has denied the rumors he wrote a letter and dropped it down this well to reach him.

Iranian media though won’t report on such activities because of a fear of what Ahmadinejad might do. After all, he was a part of the movement which took Americans hostage and ordered the murder of Iranian dissidents in Europe.

“Inside Iran, no one in a news [organization] takes the risk of publishing incorrect information about the president, who also controls the Information Ministry, [so] spreading lies about him has serious consequences,” Bastani said. “In recent weeks and months, there has been much news similar to the meeting between Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Amoli. These [reports] include the allocation in at least two cases of heavy budgets for the Jamkaran mosque [at the well where some believe that Imam Mahdi is hiding] or comments by the president that have been quoted by the Iranian media in which he had said in an official meeting that the Hidden Imam will appear in two years.”

Ahmadinejad is a strange, strange man who seems to feel his deity wishes to hang all homosexuals, beat women, kill women for being raped, deny today’s version of basic human rights to an entire populace, erase an entire nation off the map, have a law against satellite dishes for public consumption yet launch a satellite of his own, have a strange phobia against cell phones, etc.