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Monday night, Iranian state TV broadcasted a dated speech by President Ahmadinejad ‎which had not been broadcast until now but which some analysts believe is in fact the ‎launching of his premature campaign bid for the second presidential term..‎

This speech was made a month ago when Ahmadineajd spoke to clerics and theological ‎students in Mashhad. In the talk, the president told his audience, “A few days ago, a ‎revolutionary cleric said to me,‘They say that you claim to be in contact with the twelfth ‎Shiite Imam (believed to be in occultation)’to which I replied “When did I make such a ‎claim?” But despite his denial, the president immediately dwelved into his talk at ‎Columbia University in New York and said, “Prior to my talk, they (university officials) ‎had put an eight minute pre-recorded message on the university’s telephone system which ‎‎ bombasted the Islamic republic of Iran so that whoever called the school would hear it ‎‎… after my talk, everyone from the doorman at the UN to other officials congratulated ‎us!” ‎

In his talk, Ahmadinejad also said that American invasion of Iraq to gain access to that ‎country’s oil was merely a “superficial reason”, adding that real reason was, “They had ‎realized that a divine intervention at the global level was about to take place which would ‎cut off their reach.” Ahmadinejad’s reference of course is to the belief among Shiites that ‎the twelfth Imam (a messianic figure believed to be in occultation since 1,140 years ago) ‎would return one day and implement justice on earth, something that according to ‎Ahmadinejad, the US had come to realize and thus decided to invade Iran, probably in an ‎effort to prevent ‘the divine intervention’ of Imam Mahdi!‎

In this dated newly published speech in Mashhad, the head of Iran’s government makes ‎indirect references to Hashemi Rafsanjani and says, “This plotting against the ‎government that he is engaged in … the leader of this movement said at a meeting that ‎they can do whatever they wish, but we own the oil and the banks, and we will defeat ‎them … when you pull a string fifty protests will rise and thousands begin to support the ‎criminal, thus preventing the implementation of justice”. ‎

At the end of the speech, and without even mentioning the multitude of existing problems ‎facing the country under the current conditions, Ahmadinejad again mentioned the ‎administration’s efforts to facilitate the return of the missing Imam and said this about the ‎future plans of his government: “The last phase has begun. We must immediately bring ‎domestic events in Iran under control and attend to the revolution’s global ‎responsibilities.”‎