Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not a world leader worthy of the world stage. He is the evil leader of an Iranian death cult. A new U.N. report indicates that he is making progress in building nuclear weapons. He has predicted the arrival of the Twelfth Imam and called for wiping Israel “off the map.” He aspires to be a mass murderer beyond the scale of history’s great dictators. He deserves to be in prison, or an insane asylum. His speech on Thursday before the United Nations General Assembly was further proof, if any more were needed.

Did you see Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic address, or read the full text? You should. It’s instructive. Unfortunately, you won’t find Ahmadinejad’s full speech reprinted in the major newspapers. It was pitifully covered by the mainstream media. It should have been carefully analyzed.

Ahmadinejad isn’t hiding what he believes. He denied the Holocaust. He blasted the U.S. for bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. He blamed the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on the U.S. government. He insisted that his so-called messiah known as “Imam al-Mahdi” or the Twelfth Imam is coming soon. He insisted that Jesus Christ will come with the Mahdi to take over the world. He called for “the shared and collective management of the world.”

Consider this excerpt:

This movement is certainly on its rightful path of creation, ensuring a promising future for humanity. A future that will be built when humanity initiates to [tread] the path of the divine prophets and the righteous under the leadership of Imam al-Mahdi, the Ultimate Savior of mankind and the inheritor to all divine messengers and leaders and to the pure generation of our great Prophet. The creation of a supreme and ideal society with the arrival of a perfect human being who is a true and sincere lover of all human beings, is the guaranteed promise of Allah. He will come alongside with Jesus Christ to lead the freedom and justice lovers to eradicate tyranny and discrimination, and promote knowledge, peace, justice, freedom and love across the world. He will present to every single individual all the beauties of the world and all good things which bring happiness for humankind.

Though most world leaders do not appear to understand what Ahmadinejad is really saying, students of Shia Islamic eschatology, or end-times theology, do. The Iranian leader believes the end of the world as we have known it is increasingly close at hand. He believes the time for establishing an Islamic caliphate, or global government ruled by the Mahdi, is rapidly approaching. What’s more, he believes that the way to hasten the coming of the Twelfth Imam is to acquire nuclear weapons and use them to annihilate the United States, which he calls the “Great Satan,” and Israel, which he calls the “Little Satan.”

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands what Ahmadinejad means. So do some of his top military advisers. That’s why they believe Iran is in the eye of a gathering storm in the Middle East, and the chance of a major war is growing.

“Iran has not abandoned its nuclear program. The opposite is true; it continues full steam ahead,” warned Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg, home-front command chief for the Israeli Defense Forces, in a speech earlier this month. Also noting recent uprisings in the Arab world and growing tensions with Turkey, Eisenberg said, “This leads us to the conclusion that . . . the likelihood of an all-out war is increasingly growing.”

What is the world doing to neutralize the Iranian threat? Precious little. Yes, some world diplomats walked out of Ahmadinejad’s speech. Big deal. They walked softly, but where is the big stick? Yes, the world has passed some economic sanctions. So what? The sanctions may be making Iran’s nuclear program more complicated, but as the recent IAEA report indicates, they are not fundamentally changing the equation or stopping the bomb-building process. Why isn’t the world taking decisive action to stop Iran from building, buying, or stealing nuclear weapons and the ballistic-missile systems to deliver them? Time is running out. Once Iran has the Islamic bomb, does anyone really believe they won’t use it against the U.S. and Israel, either directly or through terrorist surrogates?

Instead of stopping Iran from getting the bomb, however, the leaders of the world — including President Obama — are hyper-focused on pressuring Israel to divide Jerusalem, divide the Land of Israel, and allow for the creation of a corrupt and dangerous Palestinian state co-led by the missile-firing Hamas terrorist group. To be sure, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is an important one, and it should be treated seriously and carefully. But it’s not the most important issue in the Middle East today. The murderous, apocalyptic Iranian regime and its race for nuclear weapons is Issue No. 1, 2 and 3.

My forthcoming political thriller, The Tehran Initiative, is about what could happen if the world doesn’t take decisive action soon. What if Iran gets the bomb? What if Iran’s leaders are about to use nuclear weapons? What if Israel launches a preemptive military strike against Iran? What would the world look like, and what would the current — or future — American president do?

Such questions, I think, make for chilling fiction. Unfortunately, the scenario is all too real. Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic address just made that abundantly clear. It was the most blistering attack on the U.S., Israel, Europe, and the West he’s ever delivered at the United Nations. Every year Ahmadinejad feels more and more emboldened because he says the most evil and sickening things but the world takes no action to stop him. Shame on such world leaders. They are leading us down a very dangerous path.

— Joel C. Rosenberg is a former senior aide to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the author of eight New York Times best-selling books about the Middle East. His latest book, The Tehran Initiative, releases October 18th.