The Terror of Tehran

June 27, 2005, 9:49 a.m. The Terror of Tehran The nuclear threat just went from bad to worse.

There are three things you need to understand about Iran’s recent sham elections.

The first is that contrary to the misreporting of the mainstream media, the Iranian people never had a choice between a “moderate” who might be more willing to halt Iran’s nuclear program, and a “hardliner” bent on a nuclear confrontation with the West.

The Associated Press had the gall to describe the 70-year old Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as “the more moderate candidate” and said the “pragmatic” Rafsanjani “has appeared more willing to negotiate [with the West] on the nuclear program.”

Reuters echoed that assessment, describing Rafsanjani as a “moderate cleric” who has “recast himself as a liberal” and to stop his “ultra-conservative rival,” Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Similarly, the Washington Post described Rafsanjani as a “senior statesman” who “carried the banner of the reformist movement.”

The New York Times, meanwhile, reported that “if Mr. Rafsanjani loses, hard-line anti-Western forces, which already dominate the nation's leadership, will have a monopoly on power.”

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But nothing could have been further from the truth. Rafsanjani, who previously served as Iran’s president from 1989 to 1997, was neither a “moderate” nor a “reformer.” He certainly was no “pragmatist” with whom the West could do business. To the contrary, he is one of the father’s of Iran’s nuclear program and an outspoken advocate of Iran and her radical Islamic allies building offensive nuclear weapons.

On December 14, 2001, the Iran Press Service (IPS) ran this headline: RAFSANJANI SAYS MUSLIMS SHOULD USE NUCLEAR WEAPON AGAINST ISRAEL. Speaking before a crowd in Tehran, Rafsanjani said, “When the Islamic world acquires atomic weapons, the strategy of the West will hit a dead end — since the use of a single atomic bomb has the power to destroy Israel completely, while it will only cause partial damage to the Islamic world.”

The IPS story said that according to analysts, “not only [was] Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s speech…the strongest against Israel, but also this is the first time that a prominent leader of the Islamic Republic openly suggests the use of [a] nuclear weapon against the Jewish State.”

In his new book Countdown To Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown With Iran, Kenneth R. Timmerman cites a 1988 speech by Rafsanjani to a conference of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in which the Iranian leader says bluntly, “We should fully equip ourselves both in the offensive and defensive use of chemical, bacteriological, and radiological weapons. From now on, you should make use of the opportunity and perform this task.”

Bad to Worse The second thing to understand about Iran’s sham elections is that Rafsanjani — the “moderate” — lost to someone even the mainstream media understands is even more dangerous. Indeed, no sooner did President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad get the word that he had triumphed in the rigged elections than he vowed to accelerate Iran’s nuclear program.

Translation: The Iranian nuclear threat to the U.S., Israel and our allies in the region just went from bad to worse.

For the past two years I have traveled to Russia and the Middle East doing research for my just-released political thriller, The Ezekiel Option. It focuses on a White House facing a dictator coming to power in the Kremlin who builds a nuclear alliance with Iran and brings the world to the brink of the apocalypse. But truth may be stranger — and more dangerous — than fiction.

I just returned to Washington from two weeks in Israel and Jordan where I met with a number of high-level political, military, and intelligence officials. Across the board, they predicted Iran will reach the “point of no return” by the beginning of next year. That is, by January 2006 — if not before — Iran will finally have the technology, the know-how, and the trained nuclear scientists needed to produce highly enriched uranium.

Once those pieces are in place, Iran could have ready to bomb by 2006 or 2007. What is more, Iran will also very likely have the missile technology capable of delivering nuclear weapons into Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and even as far as Europe. And they will possess the terror networks through which they could try to send a nuclear bomb into Europe or even the United States.

Russian Roulette Thirdly, rather than help us stop or slow down Iran’s feverish bid to join the nuclear club, Russian President Vladimir Putin is actually aiding and abetting the mullahs in Tehran.

Indeed, Moscow has effectively formed a nuclear alliance with Iran.

Russia has an $800 million contract to build Iran’s first nuclear reactor in Bushehr and to provide all the nuclear fuel needed. The facility is now 84-percent complete and is expected to come online next year. The Russians have further plans to build at least five more reactors for Iran and have trained more than 1,000 Iranian nuclear scientists.

Despite repeated entreaties by both the Clinton-Gore and Bush-Cheney administrations, the Kremlin refuses to back off. Indeed, Putin was one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his rise to power, and specifically offered the Iranian hardliner continued nuclear cooperation.

“The construction of the Bushehr nuclear plant is nearing end, and we are ready to continue cooperation with Iran in the nuclear energy sphere,” the Russian leader wrote to Iran’s president-elect in a letter released by the Kremlin.

Watching the Sand Clock No one wants another war in the Middle East. But the clock is ticking and we must be clear: the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran to the U.S., Israel and to our allies in Europe and the Middle East is growing. Should the Bush administration allow Iran to go nuclear on its watch, so many of the gains made thus far in the war on terror would be erased virtually overnight.

As one of the characters in The Ezekiel Option puts it, “To misunderstand the nature and threat of evil is to risk being blindsided by it.”

The West was blindsided on 9/11 by al Qaeda terrorists armed with nothing but box cutters and the will to kill thousands.

We dare not be blindsided in the future by Ayatollahs armed with thermonuclear warheads and the will to kill millions.

— Joel C. Rosenberg is the New York Times best-selling author of The Last Jihad and The Last Days. His new political thriller is The Ezekiel Option was published Monday by Tyndale House. This article is adapted from a speech he delivered at the Heritage Foundation.

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By Joel C. Rosenberg: FUTURE SHOCK: Four Headlines You Will Read One Day -- Maybe Soon

I'm writing this from the northernmost tip of Jordan. Behind me, only a few hours away, is Baghdad. To my left is the Sea of Galilee and Israel. Straight ahead are the Golan Heights. To my right is Syria. Down below is the demilitarized zone and the Yarmuk River. At the moment, I'm in the ancient Roman city of Gaderenes, also known as Gadara, or Gerasenes, and known to Jordanian Arabs today as Umm Qais.

As I sit here amidst the columns of the "Philosopher's Forum," my friend is sharing the gospel with our Muslim tour guide as the Islamic call to prayer can be heard in the valley. My friend has a passion for seeing Muslims turn their hearts to the one true God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and our guide is very open to the conversation.

Indeed, a moment ago, this spiritual conversation began when the guide quoted a 4th century Roman philosopher who is buried here whose sarcophogus we are looking at reads, "To you passerby I say, as you are I was, and as I am you will be. So enjoy your life, because you will die." My friend asked the guide in Arabic, "Do you know with absolute certainty where you will go when you die? Because the Bible says you can know for sure." And they were off.

The conversation is proceeding in Arabic so as I pray for this Muslim man's soul, I am also reflecting on the fact that we are at one of the most fought over strategic crossroads in human history. So many wars have been fought here in the last 60 years. And before long, this will be the site of the War of Gog and Magog, where the Hebrew Prophet Ezekiel (chp 38-39) tells us that some of the most horrific events of the last days before the return of Christ will occur.

Today, however, feels like the calm before the storm. It is sunny and hot, with clear skies and no signs of tanks or troops or fighter jets of any kind. Only an abandoned Jordanian artillery bunker provides evidence of the blood once shed here.

This trip to both sides of the Jordan River has given me much time to consider the trends in this region and what the future may hold.

Not long ago, as you know, after several story lines in my novels seemed to come true, an article in U.S. News & World Report described me as a "modern Nostradamus." The New York Daily News described my political thrillers as "eerily prophetic," while other commentators have called my plots "ripped from tomorrow's headlines." I am not a psychic, of course, nor a prophet, nor do I call 900-numbers in the middle of the night to get story ideas. But I believe that a careful study of the Scriptures, as well as of political and economic trend lines, can give us a very real sense of what the future will hold.

The following are four headlines I believe we will read in the not-too-distant future.

Future Headline #1: U.N. DEMANDS THAT ISRAEL GIVE UP HER NUCLEAR ARSENAL.

The U.S. and Europe are currently pressuring Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions, and pressuring Russia to stop selling Iran nuclear technology and fuel. It is the right thing to do, as nuclear-armed radical Islamic mullahs would pose an immanent threat to the U.S. and the rest of the free world. But watch for Iran to mount an aggressive counter-punch soon. In a bid to turn the attention away from their own dangerous behavior, expect Tehran to urge the U.N. to pressure Israel to give up the two hundred or so nuclear warheads the Jewish State is believed to possess.

Such a case will be echoed by non-nuclear Arab states with reasonably good ties to the West, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and I believe they will quickly find strong support among major European powers. France, Germany and Russia would likely be among those who join an international effort to pressure Israel to disarm, and Great Britain might join in as well.

What would the U.S. do? Would the White House stand behind Israel's right to self-defense or agree that Israel should sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) along with nearly every other country on the face of the planet? It depends on the President and the mood of the country. Such a scenario is a key component of my next novel, The Ezekiel Option, launching at the end of June. But is it fiction? I believe it is a headline that will be written all too soon.

Future Headline #2: WEALTH POURS INTO IRAQ AS OIL INDUSTRY BOOMS

Today's headlines out of Iraq are filled with car bombs and suicide bombers, snipers and violence of all kinds. But it will not always be so. The country we know today as Iraq was long known in the Bible as the country of Babylon or Babylonia. The Hebrew Prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah, as well as the Apostle John who wrote the Book of Revelation, make it clear that in the last days before the return of Jesus Christ, Babylon will be the most powerful country in the world and the home base of the Anti-Christ. Rather than be consumed by violence, Iraq will be an exporter of violence.

That being the case, we can expect the current strife to come to an end before long so that a "new Babylon" can emerge. As Iraq is increasingly pacified, its oil industry will be able to bloom. Millions of barrels of Iraqi oil will begin to flood the markets each day. That will drive global oil and gas prices down, and cause hundreds of billions of dollars in new petrodollars to flood into Iraqi coffers, making Iraq one of the wealthiest countries on the face of the earth.

I wrote about such a scenario in the novel The Last Days. I develop it even further in The Ezekiel Option. But again, is it fiction? In April, I was speaking at a conference of CEOs and business leaders and met the V.P. of a major oil company who told me this is exactly the scenario his company believes will play itself out: pacification followed by the explosive growth of the Iraqi oil industry, aided and capitalized by Western oil companies. Already, his company (among many others) is positioning itself for the new era of Iraqi oil just over the horizon.

Future Headline #3: IRAQIS TO REBUILD ANCIENT BABYLON AS COMMERCIAL EPICENTER

Earlier this spring, Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, and I looked into the possibility of going to the ancient city of Babylon, some fifty miles south of Baghdad. We would love to see what Saddam did to begin the process of rebuilding that once and future global capital, and perhaps create a DVD tour of the city, before the Anti-Christ makes it impossible for Christians to visit there. Unfortunately, for now, it is just too dangerous to go to Babylon. But I believe the doors will open soon.

As oil wealth pours into a newly peaceful Iraq, watch for the newly democratic government in Baghdad to become ambitious. With the blessings of the U.S. and the U.N.-grateful that Iraq is increasingly able to stand on its own feet and no longer needing huge numbers of U.S. troops and billions of dollars in global humanitarian and reconstruction aid-watch for Iraq to position itself as the region's commercial epicenter. Government and business leaders will be eager to invest in new building projects to draw capital, companies, and tourists to this historic cradle of civilization.

To that end, watch particularly for the Iraqi government to invest billions into rebuilding the ancient city of Babylon into the wealthiest and most powerful and influential city in the Middle East, and eventually in the world. Revelation 18 describes the end times Babylon as a "great city" by whom many will become "rich by her wealth." She will be an international exporter of "gold and silver and precious stones" as well as "bronze and iron and marble … incense and perfume" and even "slaves and human lives." Much of the growth of Babylon will occur after the Rapture and during the Tribulation, at the direction of the Anti-Christ. But it is not unreasonable to think that Babylon could emerge as a major commercial center sooner, depending on how soon the Rapture happens.

Future Headline #4: JEWS TURNING TO JESUS AS MESSIA IN RECORD NUMBERS

As an evangelical Christian from an Orthodox Jewish background, this is one of the headlines to which I am most looking forward. Indeed, it is a story God is already writing, though the mainstream media has not caught on to it yet.

When I was born in April of 1967, there were only about a half dozen Jewish believers in Messiah Jesus in Israel and less than 200 worldwide. After the Six Day War in June of 1967, the numbers began to accelerate dramatically.

Today, there are almost two hundred Jewish believers in Jesus just in the congregation my wife and I attend, McLean Bible Church outside of Washington, D.C. Our pastor, Lon Solomon, is Jewish, and on the board of Jews for Jesus.

Conservative estimates put the current number of Jewish believers worldwide at about 60,000. Other estimates say the real number is north of 100,000.

A Jerusalem Post headline last month noted that there are now more than 10,000 Jewish believers just in Israel alone, double the number used by evangelical Jewish leaders just a few years ago.

What's more, Revelation 14 tells us that in the last days there will be 144,000 Jewish "witnesses" or super-evangelists-on the order of Billy Graham and Luis Palau-spreading out all over the globe to win Jews and Gentiles to Christ.

Jesus Himself told the Jewish people in Matthew 23:39, "For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.'" In other words, as the Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ approach, we can expect huge numbers of Jews to turn to Jesus and to be excited about His coming.

It has already begun to happen, and this exciting trend will only accelerate.

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