WHEN President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the United Nations for the first time last September, he had a mystical, out of body experience. On his return to Iran he said: “One of our group told me that when I started to say, ‘In the name of the God, the almighty and merciful’, he saw a light around me and I was placed inside this aura.”

Sheer flattery? Not according to the Iranian president. “I felt it myself,” he continued.

“I felt the atmosphere suddenly change and for those 27 or 28 minutes the leaders of the world did not blink . . . They were rapt. It seemed as if a hand was holding them there and had opened their eyes to receive the message from the Islamic republic.”

Ahmadinejad is said to believe in the return of the 12th imam, the Mahdi, who will restore peace and justice at the end of the world.

Middle Eastern commentators have noted the delicious irony of having two sparring, devout leaders — President George W Bush and Ahmadinejad — who believe in the second coming of a messiah on judgment day. But only the Iranian leader has vowed to “wipe” another nation, Israel, off the map, adding an apocalyptic air of menace to his country’s quest to acquire supposedly peaceful nuclear power.

Iran’s decision to break the UN seals at its nuclear enrichment plant in Natanz last week has placed the international community in a quandary.

Was it a shrewd piece of Iranian realpolitik designed to win approval at home and to spread fear abroad, or the actions of an Islamic fanatic and avowed Holocaust denier obsessed with destroying the Jewish state? And whatever the Iranian president’s motivation, can he be stopped?

Bush is expected to invite Ehud Olmert, the acting Israeli prime minister, to Washington next month for talks on Iran. The timing is sensitive. Israel goes to the polls in March and it would be bad form for the White House to give the successor to Ariel Sharon an apparent electoral boost. But the Iranian threat is considered so serious that Bush may not want to wait.

Before the massive stroke that left him in a coma, Sharon had declared: “Israel will not accept a nuclear weapon equipped Iran.” He had quietly ordered the Israeli Defence Forces to be ready to launch airstrikes against nuclear sites in the Islamic republic if necessary.

“The whole issue is now with the Americans,” said an Israeli defence source. “Once we get the green light, we’re ready.”

For now the light has stalled on amber. Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, chastised Iran last week for its “dangerous defiance” and warned that “the president of the United States never takes any of his options off the table”. She added, however, that diplomacy was the best way to solve the crisis: “If the international community stays united, it has a chance to work.”

The European Union Three (EU3) of Britain, France and Germany spent 2½ years trying to coax Iran into a “grand bargain” whereby it would be welcomed into the community of nations with trade and technology sweeteners in exchange for suspending its nuclear programme.

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