Your comment on my moniker was much appreciated. Thank you.
As to the gist of your question: whether there could be other “non-religious” reasons for widening this famous boulevard whose name escapes me, I can only tell you what I can tell you.
At the time it was done there was widespread public press on the project and while I’m going out on a limb just a little here, I’m almost positive that Ahmadinejad made multiple proclamations as to it’s Raison d’être. In other words, there was no attempt made to hide it as some kind of overblown “fixing the potholes” project.
That then brings up the question: what if Ahmadinejad said those things but, the sly fox that he is, actually had other, more nefarious things in mind.
Well I’d give two answers to that. The first and probably best is that as you cogently point out, “standard military doctrine” would seem to dictate something that would hinder, not help, the supposed convergence of tanks into your capital.
There’s also always something to be learned by any one of Israel’s last 2 or 3 wars. And perhaps the predominant lesson there — a lesson that has, in fell swoop “converted” the entire political Left in Israel to a far more militaristic posture — is the “new era” in warfare involving missiles. While the big ones can be defended against, the far more numerous smaller ones cannot — and certainly cannot once you throw in the cost of even attempting to do so). The point of all this being that we’ll be seeing much more of missile exchanges in non-contiguous countries than ever before. As usual the Germans pioneered this exact tactic with the V2.
The 2nd reason I would give in answer to your question which does not have to do with war is that the boulevard widening was only one of Ahmadinejad’s famous projects to hasten the Mahdi’s arrival (although perhaps the best known).
But the fact is that there have been a plethora of “public works” projects all with the loudly stated goal (and I would imagine pomp and circumstance) to coax, or at least facilitate, the hidden Mahdi out of his occultation. I have even heard talk of some sort of light rail line in order to ease the passage of the believers to Qom. Logistically it wouldn’t be that difficult: Tehran to Qom is approximately 100 miles and crosses the relatively flat width of a valley.
But Qom’s traditional elders are, to put it mildly, upset at Ahmadinejad’s building in and around the Jamkaran Well. And to add insult to injury, they don’t take kindly to a leader who straightforwardly claims he is guided by the hidden Imam himself(!)
So to spell it out: the boulevard widening project was but one of many such projects all conducted with the same publicly stated goal. You must remember that Ahmadinejad is a person who (purportedly) wrote down the names of the newly elected Majlis (Parliament) on separate pieces of paper and then dropped them into the Jamkaran Well. Presumably he felt this would allow the hidden Imam to stay abreast of important political events. I do not believe he did this as a “symbolic act” or for any reason other than his actual belief that he was in fact communicating with the hidden 12th Imam. I also do not think that Ahmadinejad would disagree. Therein lies the danger.
