Proof That Nuke Deal With Iran So Important To Malignant Narcissist-in-Chief That He Is Willing To Kill Every Single American In Coming Apocalypse

The Los Angeles Times – a major liberal newspaper of record – offered the following page one news story about Obama’s nuke deal and about how EVERY SINGLE MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRY FROM ISRAEL TO SAUDI ARABIA, KUWAIT, BAHRAIN, QATAR, U.A.E. and OMAN, ETC. IS DEEPLY OPPOSED TO IT.

And it details the fact that Saudi Arabia among the other Middle Eastern Sunni countries are deeply aware that Obama essentially guarantees them the right to complete legally develop nuclear weapons merely by waiting ten years.  And that even IF Iran doesn’t cheat (fat chance given that they have cheated in EVERY deal they have ever made with us) they can obtain nukes under the deal merely by waiting ten years.  And how would we negotiate then when we gave them the right to build nukes ten years from now?

And it details the shenanigans that Obama and his treasonous White House is playing not only with Iran but with EVERYONE to shove this deal down our collectivists throats.  Those shenanigans include Obama guaranteeing the Saudis that he will guarantee a World War Three nuclear holocaust if Iran ever uses the bomb he is giving them by committing America to total war.

Do you like that part of the deal, liberal?  Do you like the fact that Obama’s wicked deal is pushing Sunni Arab countries to obtain their own nuclear weapons to the bomb that they all know Obama is giving Iran???  Do you like Obama creating a nuclear arms race in the craziest part of the world???  Do you like the part that guarantees that if any of these nations are ever attacked by Iran as backed by Russia, the United States will jeopardize every single life of every single American in an Armageddon-style nuclear holocaust???  Does it bother you that every single decent Middle Eastern ally is horrified by the details of this deal whose details Obama has prevented either Congress or the American people from seeing???  Does it bother you that Obama’s policy is to treat our historic allies as enemies and our historic enemies as allies???  Does it bother you that Obama is desperately trying – against ALL advice and ALL common sense – to make Iran the most economically powerful nation in the region so it can fund even more destabilizing war and terrorism across the world than it is already doing as we speak???  But it’s here in black-and-white:

U.S. promises to beef up defense aid to Persian Gulf allies
By Paul Richter and Alexandra Zavis
April 7, 2015, 6:30 PM|Reporting from WASHINGTON
▼ White House invites leaders of six Arab nations to the presidential retreat at Camp David
▼ Obama’s goal is to keep Arab monarchies from buying sensitive technology or a nuclear weapon from Pakistan
▼ The White House is weighing new security commitments to Israel

Obama administration officials are promising a major strengthening of U.S. defense commitments to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies, possibly including a nuclear commitment to their security, in an intensifying effort to win their support for the proposed nuclear deal with Iran.

Officials say they hope to reassure nervous gulf Arab states by providing more military aid and training to their defense forces, and by making more explicit commitments to help them repel external attacks.

The administration is studying whether to make any nuclear assurances, though officials emphasize no decision has been made.

The White House has invited leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council nations — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman — to the presidential retreat at Camp David in coming weeks, though the date is not confirmed. U.S. officials are expected to make public new security arrangements at the meeting.

The administration’s goal, officials said Tuesday, is to convince the Arab monarchies that U.S. security guarantees will make them safer than if they buy sensitive technology or a nuclear weapon from Pakistan, a Sunni Muslim ally, as the Saudis have privately threatened to do.

The White House is weighing separate new commitments to Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown no sign of tempering his fierce criticism of a deal that would ease economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for verifiable limits on its ability to enrich uranium or conduct most other nuclear work for at least 10 years.

Negotiators from six world powers and Iran have set a June 30 deadline to try to complete the proposed accord. But the details released when the framework for the agreement was announced Thursday unsettled the Persian Gulf monarchies that have been core U.S. allies for 70 years, as well as Israel.

The monarchies see themselves as Tehran’s chief regional rivals and fear that the nuclear deal signals an American “pivot to Persia” that would empower Shiite Muslim Iran and leave the Sunni Arab states at a disadvantage.

President Obama took pains in several interviews to try to allay those fears.

“We’re going to be there for our [Persian Gulf] friends,” Obama told columnist Thomas Friedman. “I want to see how we can formalize that a little bit more than we currently have, and also help build their capacity so that they feel more confident about their ability to protect themselves from external aggression.”

With much of the Middle East torn by civil war or other upheavals, the oil-rich gulf monarchies remain crucial U.S. allies.

Several have joined the U.S.-led airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. The U.S., in turn, has provided intelligence and logistic support to the Saudi-led coalition bombing rebel forces in Yemen who are backed by Iran.

Strengthening U.S. relations with the gulf states “is a big deal — it’s got to be one of the central components of the U.S. strategy after the Iran deal,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a former Obama administration official now at the Center for a New American Security, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

Goldenberg compared the White House outreach to the way the Nixon administration worked to bolster security ties to Japan and Taiwan after opening relations with China, their main regional rival, in 1972.

But the Obama administration faces unique challenges.

The Saudis especially have been disappointed with Obama’s approach to the Middle East. They see themselves battling Iran in a sectarian war raging across Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria, and fear easing of the economic sanctions in a nuclear deal could reinvigorate Iran’s economy and make it even more of a regional threat.

Saudi officials have made clear that they don’t want a public battle with Washington, and on Monday issued cautious statements of support for the framework. “We hope there will be a deal based on the principles that the U.S. government has articulated to us,” Adel Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, told reporters.

But privately, many Saudi officials say they are skeptical that the deal will stop Tehran from eventually developing nuclear weapons because the restrictions it would impose are not permanent.

“The regime will sit and wait for 10 or 15 years to pass and it will restore its nuclear activities legally and legitimately,” said Mustafa Alani, a security studies scholar at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai who is close to the kingdom’s rulers.

Such concerns have been expressed privately to the Obama administration through the region’s embassies, Alani said. The aim isn’t to torpedo an eventual agreement. “We believe a diplomatic solution is better than any other solution, military or more economic sanctions,” he said.

One challenge for the White House is whether it can expand a defense relationship that already is enormous. Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, and the Pentagon keeps 35,000 troops, two aircraft carrier task forces, cyber warfare specialists, drone aircraft units and more in the region. The United States and Saudi Arabia are in the middle of a 20-year, $60-billion arms deal.

It’s also not clear that U.S. nuclear security commitments would be useful or welcomed by the gulf states.

The administration would have a hard time trying to get Congress, which has been skeptical about the U.S.-Saudi relationship, to enact a treaty that put a U.S. nuclear “umbrella” over Arab Sunni nations, as the United States has over Japan and South Korea.

Such agreements aim to deter nuclear attack by warning foes that the United States would retaliate with overwhelming force if an ally is attacked with a nuclear weapon.

The administration might try to adopt the policy by administrative action to end-run Congress. But the gulf states might not welcome a public statement to guarantee their safety. Because of domestic anger at the United States, these governments have long been leery of being too publicly aligned with Washington.

“They want an American security blanket, but without us having to shout about it,” said Simon Henderson, a Persian Gulf specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a public policy group in Washington.

U.S. officials say they may try to persuade the Saudis to sign a so-called 1-2-3 agreement, which gives countries special U.S. help building a civilian nuclear power industry as long as they accept restrictions to prevent development of a nuclear weapons program. But analysts said the Saudis probably would not agree because, at least in theory, it would give them less freedom to pursue a nuclear program someday than the Iranians.

Another possible gesture would be to declare the gulf states “major non-NATO allies,” said Thomas Lippman, a Saudi specialist at the nonpartisan Middle East Institute in Washington. The designation, applied to close allies like Japan, Australia and Israel, provides special help in buying weapons and obtaining U.S. weapons.

Richter reported from Washington and Zavis from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Times staff writer Laura King in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

We’re so screwed it’s beyond unreal.  Obama doesn’t give a DAMN about you, your parents, your spouse, your children, your family, your friends, etc. etc.  He is a truly wicked and depraved man.  He is a malignant narcissist who cares only about himself.  And he wants to be able to posture himself as some historic “dealmaker” who – as he put it – “slowed the rise of the oceans and began to heal the planet” and “made the world better, safer and more peaceful than it has ever been.”  He is determined to leave office crowing about that and try to set up the next Democrat for election to the White House, and he frankly doesn’t CARE what happens three or four years from now because of his wicked deal.

When you examine how North Korea kept pushing and cheating and lying and playing us after Bill Clinton made his infamous nuclear deal with that dictatorship.  When you see how they kept cheating and working until they had the ballistic missiles they needed and then – POOF!!! – went nuclear, you should understand that Democrats are simply not capable of learning and will make the same mistakes over and over and over again.

I mean, holy crap, please look at the chronology from the time that Bill Clinton crowed about making the world wonderful and North Korea detonating a nuclear bomb armed with missiles to deliver it.  And try to prove to me that Obama has demonstrated and manifested the absolute hardness that he will go to war with Iran if that country doesn’t cross so much as one ‘t’ or dot one ‘i’ as that country follows North Korea’s example.

WATCH Bill Clinton make all the same damn false promises and provide all the same damn false assurances about his wicked North Korea deal that Obama is deceitfully making now:

For God’s sake, Democrat, please stop, think, learn from history and slow down in your mad rush to allow Obama to pave the way for Antichrist so you can take the mark of the beast and burn in hell forever and ever and ever.

Because right now, RIGHT NOW, Democrat, YOU are guaranteeing the rise of Antichrist and YOU are guaranteeing Armageddon.  God is one day going to hold YOU responsible for what YOUR leader whom YOU voted for did.  And hell will be eternal because even eternity will not be long enough for YOU to pay for YOUR crimes against the world that YOU are setting into motion right now.

Barack Obama is now not merely making all the same mistakes that led the world into World War II by appeasing our enemies and emboldening them with weakness; he is making the same mistakes that led the world into World War I by forming crazy alliances that will drag the United States into total global war.  This deal with Iran is the worst of all possible worlds.

And yes, it is WORSE than war with Iran, because if we went to war with Iran now, at least we wouldn’t be going to war with a country that can devastate several of our largest cities and kill millions of our people as they seek to cause the appearing of the Twelfth Imam by bathing the world in blood.

PLEASE understand that as evil and as insane as North Korea is, their goal is to survive and continue their regime at all cost, whereas Iran as ALL radical jihadist Muslims have demonstrated OVER AND OVER again that their goal is to die as martyrs in an ocean of blood at all costs.

PLEASE allow just one moment of sober thought that hasn’t been beamed directly into your brain matter by Satan to enter your head so you can comprehend REALITY.

But no, Democrat, YOU are hell-bent on hell.  The truth has been veiled to you because you are defiant of God, bent on depravity, such that your warped mind has been blinded by the god of this age.

Hell is coming for you, Democrat, every bit as much as destruction is coming upon the world because of you.  Because “YOU offered superficial treatments for God’s people’s mortal wound. YOU gave assurances of peace when there WAS no peace” per Jeremiah 6:14 and 8:11.

RIGHT NOW, Democrat, YOU are declaring to God, “If this is a bad deal that my messiah Obama is making with Iran, let it fall upon MY head and the heads of MY children.  Let my nation perish as we are forced by Obama into a full-fledged nuclear Armageddon.”

The very heavens are testifying against Obama and against YOU (and see also here), Democrat.

You whine about global warming on one hand for crises and then hypocritically cite “insufficient global warming” as your excuse for Obama’s failed economy on the other, but it is YOU who have brought “climate change” with your depraved shaking of your fist at God according to Romans chapter one verses 18-31 and according to Pslam 139 and now as you curse Israel by abandoning her in her hour of need.  And so God is fulfilling His Word to us according to Amos 4:7, “”I kept the rain from falling when your crops needed it the most. I sent rain on one town but withheld it from another. Rain fell on one field, while another field withered away.”

Because of your wickedness as God judges YOU and curses YOU for your wicked actions through him, you will inherit all the curses of Deuteronomy 28:22-26:

22“The LORD will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew, and they will pursue you until you perish. 23“The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron. 24“The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.

25“The LORD shall cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you will go out one way against them, but you will flee seven ways before them, and you will be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26“Your carcasses will be food to all birds of the sky and to the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

THAT is precisely what you are negotiating for in your false messiah’s “deal” with Iran, Democrat.  Iran will get its wish as it bathes the world in blood to make the beast come.  Because, yes, what they call the Twelfth Imam is one of the beasts of Revelation according to Revelation chapter thirteen.  And notice that it is only AFTER Israel depicted as a woman pregnant with Child – is abandoned to her fate unless God Himself save her in Revelation chapter twelve that the beasts come in chapter thirteen.

Hell is coming for YOU, Democrat.  And it is coming because right now YOU are sowing to the wind and demanding that you reap the whirlwind.

Don’t think that YOU will escape from the hell that YOU are bringing, Democrat.

Jesus came into the world as the ultimate fulfillment of Psalm 139.  He was conceived by the Holy Spirit to be the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.  But YOU and EVERY SINGLE Democrat saw only an unwed young girl and told her to have an abortion.  And so your baby Jesus was slaughtered in the womb just as YOU have slaughtered 60 MILLION babies in the womb.  And so Jesus never lived to live the perfect life that you would not live, wicked Democrat, and to take your place for you and die for your sins.

You don’t have much time, Democrat.  Soon the Rapture is coming, the moment when Jesus Christ meets every single true believer in the air before the coming divine judgment of the Tribulation.  You won’t be going with Jesus because you have long-since placed your faith in human government and in Obama, rather than in Jesus.

One way or another, we are watching in this Malignant Narcissist Fool-in-Chief – who can’t help but keep hating Christians because Obama hated Jesus first just as Jesus testified the wicked would do – bring about the very end of days just as the Bible foretold the end would come.

And that is because Barack Hussein Obama is an Antichrist who is now openly paving the way for THE Antichrist.

And every single Democrats is actively helping him to do it.

Don’t think for one second that YOU won’t share Obama’s fate, Democrat.  Obama is powerful only because YOU gave him power.  And he is using that power that YOU gave him to ultimately bring hell to earth.

Iran Sucessfully Launches Satellite: Ballistic Nuclear Missiles Not Far Off

As morally evil as the Iranian regime is, I have to hand it to them: they have been playing a naive and appeasing Barack Obama the way a master violinist plays a Stradivarius.  At every single turn, they have fooled him, blocked him, tricked him, or stalled him while they have just continued feverishly working on developing a full-blown nuclear capability.

And now here we are, on the verge of a truly dark and terrible development in world history:

Iran’s Satellite Launch a Signal of Missile Progress, Analysts Say
By Turner Brinton
Space News Staff Writer
posted: 12 February 2009

WASHINGTON – Iran’s launch of a satellite into orbit last week will likely give U.S. and European leaders greater cause for concern that the Islamic republic is approaching the ability to field long-range ballistic missiles while its nuclear program continues to progress, analysts here agreed.

The Iranian government-sponsored Islamic Republic News Agency reported Feb. 3 that Iran had launched a research satellite called Omid into orbit aboard a Safir-2 rocket. This is Iran’s first domestically produced satellite to reach orbit and the first to successfully launch on an Iranian-built launch vehicle, according to Press TV, an Iranian government-sponsored news outlet.

The U.S. government, while not explicitly confirming Iran has launched a satellite, has expressed concern that Iran’s development of a space launch vehicle establishes the technical basis to develop long-range ballistic missile systems.

“Iran’s ongoing efforts to develop its missile delivery capabilities remain a matter of deep concern,” U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said in a Feb. 3 statement. “Many of the technological building blocks involved in [space launch vehicles] are the same as those required to develop long-range ballistic missiles. … We will continue with our friends and allies in the region to address the threats posed by Iran, including those related to its missile and nuclear programs and its support of terrorism.”

Satellite watchers using orbital data provided from U.S. Strategic Command’s space surveillance network said the satellite is in an elliptical orbit that ranges from 242 kilometers to 382 kilometers in altitude, at an inclination of 55 degrees relative to the equator. Ted Molczan, an amateur satellite observer, said the satellite and part of the rocket that took it to space are both cataloged by Strategic Command and in similar orbits. The satellite appears to be tumbling, as its brightness in the sky changes rapidly, indicating the satellite’s likely lack of a stabilization or attitude control system. Both the satellite and rocket body are likely to begin to deorbit this summer, Molczan said.

“Dear people of Iran, your children have sent Iran’s first domestic satellite into orbit,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Press TV. “May this be a step toward justice and peace. Iran’s official presence in space has been added to the pages of history.”

Meanwhile, Iran continues to develop its nuclear program, which it says it has the right to develop for peaceful civil uses as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Iran argues it needs nuclear power and will not use the technology to make weapons. The United Nations Security Council, which includes permanent members China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, has urged Iran to suspend the program numerous times to no avail.

“This [Iranian satellite launch] I think highlights the dual-use issue again, just as the nuclear issue does, and that is technology can be used for peaceful purposes or for weapons that can threaten other countries,” said Ted Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, a think tank here. “In terms of any kind of direct missile threat [to the United States], it’s likely to be many years before they could have that capability. The people worrying more are others in the Middle East and Europe.”

Carpenter said perhaps even more unsettling than the Iranian satellite launch are recent media reports that North Korea is again preparing to launch its three-stage Taepodong-2 missile, which some believe will have the range to reach U.S. territory. North Korea tested one of these missiles in 2006, but it failed shortly after launch and broke apart in the air.

“North Korea poses a much more direct threat to the United States because if it is true North Korea is planning to test an advanced version of the Taepodong-2, that could put Alaska and the U.S. west coast in range,” Carpenter said.

Thomas Donnelly, a defense and security policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said the United States and Europe ought to be concerned about the progression of Iranian technology. He argued that Iran is more of a threat to the United States than North Korea, based on Tehran’s backing of insurgents in Iraq.

“That has been a capability we have seen Iran developing, but the fact that it now has actually happened is a jarring punctuation mark,” Donnelly said. “Given what we believe about their nuclear program, it seems pretty clear they’re very close to having a complete, deliverable weapon that would have the ability to reach out to Europe.”

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution here, said though the Iranian satellite launch may not show an increase in the physical range of Iranian weapon systems, it is perhaps a more impressive display of technological prowess than a missile test launch would have been.

“That suggests a certain amount of control and guidance mastery,” O’Hanlon said. “You’ve got to hit a fairly narrow band to put something in orbit, and the simple act of firing a missile doesn’t tell you anything about how close the missile landed to its target.

“It demonstrates more sophistication than I would have assumed, but I am not surprised they did this.”

Too few Americans (and for that matter Europeans) comprehend the magnitude of this development.

Israel certainly does, given the fact that Iran has repeatedly vowed that “Israel is a cancer” which they one day intend to “wipe off the map.”

The fact that Ezekiel prophesied some 2600 years ago that Iran (Persia) would one day attack Israel in the last days along with a coalition that looks eerily like the one being assembled today.

About a quarter of Israelis have said that they would leave Israel if Iran obtained nuclear weapons, which would literally mean the death of the Jewish state.  Israeli leaders cannot possibly allow Iran to become a nuclear power.

And time is running out on them.

But it’s running out on the United States and Europe, also.

If Iran has nuclear weapons – and particularly if they have an intercontinental ballistic missile delivery system – they will be immune to attack.  Do you believe that Barack Obama would attack a nuclear-armed Iran?  I submit that Obama won’t dare attack a NON-nuclear armed Iran.  And no American president would attack a nation at the cost of one or more major U.S. cities.

If Iran gets its nukes, it will be able to do a number of things: 1) attack Israel, assuring Israel that if it uses its nukes against Iran, Iran will use its nukes against Israel; 2) shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which would immediately drive up oil.  The cost of gasoline in the U.S. would soar above $15 a gallon; 3) dramatically increase Iranian-sponsored terrorism worldwide.

If you don’t believe that a nuclear-armed Iran would pick a minimum of one of these options, you’re just nuts.

What we are seeing with Iran developing nuclear weapons and the means to project them is akin to the armament of Nazi Germany during the 1930s.  Many immediately recognized the threat the Nazis posed, but those in leadership were appeasing weaklings who were more interested in “transforming” their own societies than they were confronting genuine evil abroad.  The result was the Holocaust and the meat-grinder of World War II.

Democrats who are demagogues at heart will assert that George Bush allowed Iran to develop nuclear weapons as will.  They are liars: George Bush TRIED to persuade the U.S. to strongly confront Iran, and Democrats in Congress shrilly attacked him for his prescient knowledge of the Iranian threat.  Democrats claimed that Iran had suspended its nuclear program, and that the regime no longer posed a threat.  They couldn’t have been more wrong.

I wrote something about Iran’s nuclear program in May of 2008, and I stand by it:

Finally, the dilemma of the Iranian nuclear program serves as a sober reinforcement of the rightness of President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. As with Iraq, we have in Iran a closed, totalitarian society that our intelligence cannot reliably penetrate. How will we know for sure when and if Iran develops nuclear weapons? Do we simply choose to allow them to do so? Are we willing to suffer the consequences of the world’s largest terrorist state and supporter of terrorism to have nukes? Are we willing to give President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – who has publicly described his belief in an apocalyptic figure known as the “Twelfth Imam” who will come into the world via an act of global catastrophe – a nuclear trigger to place his finger upon? Are we willing to put nuclear weapons into the hands of someone who has repeatedly vowed to “wipe Israel off the map“?

If Iran gets nuclear weapons, you can pretty much figure that World War III is coming soon. For one thing, the country is led by apocalyptic religious fanatics who will likely either use the bomb to attack Israel, or else will smuggle it into the hands of terrorists who will do the job for them. For another, a nuclear weapon in Shiite Iran will trigger a nuclear arms race in the craziest region in the history of the world, as Sunni states feverishly work to build their own bomb to balance the power.

Meanwhile, we find both Democratic presidential candidates vocalizing longstanding opposition to the Iraq war, and promising a swift pullout if elected. The question is this: how can a president who claimed that the United States was wrong in attacking Iraq over legitimate concerns that it possessed weapons of mass destruction proceed to threaten to attack Iran over legitimate concerns that IT possesses nuclear weapons? And conversely, as the United States attempts to prevent Sunni Arab nations from developing their own nuclear weapons programs to balance Shiite Iran, how will a president – who refused to honor the American commitment to stand by Iraq – proceed to succeed in convincing Sunni countries that we will stand by them against any threat posed by Iran?

If we say that the United States was wrong to attack Iraq, then we tacitly affirm that it will be wrong to attack Iran even as it feverishly works on creating enough centrifuges to have the type of refined uranium it needs for one and only one purpose.

I also repeatedly pointed out in that three part series that countries such as Russia and China had protected Saddam Hussein by blocking every single United Nations resolution that could have prevented the Iraq War:

There was a process that the United Nations ostensibly provided by which two nations in material disagreement could come to a fair resolution. But what should have been an honest process was interfered with and corrupted by powerful member nations and by the United Nations itself. If we are going to blame anyone for the invasion, then let us blame countries like France and Russia, as well as the corrupt and grossly incompetent and negligent United Nations. They made it impossible for any just solution to prevail. In Saddam Hussein’s own words and thoughts, their protection and interference gave him the idea that he could defy the United States and keep the inspectors at bay without any meaningful consequence.

Those same countries are now protecting Iran the SAME exact way.  They are opposing sanctions and resolutions against Iran the SAME WAY they did against Iraq.  Since both countries are permanent veto-wielding members of the United Nations Security Council, they can absolutely shield Iran from ANY resolution as they choose.  And Barack Obama would have no choice but to go it alone if he wants to stop Iran’s nuclear program the same way Bush had to choose to go it alone.

But Obama WON’T DO THAT.  Which means Iran will have its nuclear capability during his watch.

Iran, Iraq, and the Future in Bible Prophecy

The huge demonstrations protesting the election issues in Iran put that country on the front pages of every newspaper.

For nearly two weeks, demonstrations have raged.  Early on, some said that they didn’t know what would happen as to whether the protests would succeed in overthrowing the regime, but most recognized that the endgame was a foregone conclusion: the regime has the tanks, the guns, and the military.  It was only a question as to whether how far things might get before they used them.

As it stands, they won’t have to, as an AP article entitled “Intensified crackdown mutes protests in Iran” indicates.  While the demonstrations might well briefly flare up again (presidential candidate Mousavi has said he would appear at a demonstration on the 24th), there has never been any serious question that the theocratic regime would stand.

The serious question that remains is, stand as what?  Will it become a more open society, more willing to seriously interact with the Western world, or will it become more hostile and more determined to pursue a violent agenda in the coming months?

Based on the prophecies in the Bible, and based on my own belief that we are entering the last days, my view is that Iran will become more hostile and violent as it is increasingly isolated in the Western world.  Furthermore, my view is that it will engage in an increasingly close alliance/partnership with Russia and with other Islamic Arab and African states.

It is important to realize that the Iranian Constitution (Article Five) is inherently apocalyptic in nature.  The still-revered Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 proclaimed that the basis for Iran’s constitution and its government would be the authority of the Hidden (or Twelfth) Imam.  This apocalyptic figure has been called the ‘expected one,’ (al—Muntazar), the ‘promised one’ (al—Mahdi’), or the ‘hidden one,’ (al—Mustatir) in the Shi’a tradition.

The threats of impending destruction of Israel and even of war against the United States have been issued in the name of this Twelfth Imam who will (according to Iranian/Shi’a Islam) come in the last days.

According to the tradition, the Hidden Imam was taken into hiding by Allah and kept there until he reappears in the last days to purify the umma and take the world for Islam.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and many others in the Iranian leadership passionately hold to the coming of the Hidden Imam.  That in itself is not necessarily frightening: Shi’ite orthodoxy has it that humans are powerless to encourage the Twelfth Imam to return.  However, in Iran a group called the Hojjatieh believe that humans can stir up chaos and violence to encourage him – even force him – to return.  And Ahmadinejad is at least a former member, and quite likely a current member of this sect.  When Ahmadinejad became president, $17 million was spent on the Jamkaran mosque, which is central to the Hojjatieh movement.  And it is even more frightening when such a man sitting as President of Iran claims to have a direct link to God.

And Dr. Serge Trifkovic has said this regarding Ahmadinejad’s theology/eschatology:

Ahmadinejad, by contrast, shares with Trotsky an apocalyptic world outlook. He favors direct action in pursuit of a permanent Islamic revolution that will pave the way for the return of the Hidden Imam, pave it with blood, sweat and tears. Indeed he’d like to speed things up, as you point out, and implicitly he hopes to achieve this by twisting the arm of the Almighty – no less so than the cloners of red heifers and would-be re-builders of the Temple hope to do as a means of speeding up the Rupture. The fact that he is more sincere in his beliefs and more earnest in his endeavors than the kleptocrats of the House of Saud are in theirs, is alarming but unsurprising. He is a visionary; they are Machiavellian cynics.

A much-more detailed analysis that comes to much the same conclusion about Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic vision is available via FrontPage Magazine.

Mind you, re-building the Temple or cloning a red heifer are scarcely the source of inherently cataclysmic activities that many too many Shiite Muslims are pursuing.

So when one considers Iran, under such leadership, to be dedicated to the acquisition of nuclear weapons after stating that Israel should be “wiped out from the map” – and with the current Ayatollah Khamenei stating that Israel is a “cancerous tumor” on the verge of collapse – well, one should be very worried.  Wiping out Israel in a fiery blaze of atomic glory would indeed be a way to create the holocaust that would prompt the return of the long-awaited Hidden Imam (if anything ever could).

Clearly Jews understand this, as 1 in 4 would seriously consider leaving the country if Iran succeeds in acquiring nuclear weapons.  Given that such an event would literally mean the end of the state of Israel even if Iran didn’t nuke them, Israel has little choice but to attack Iran’s nuclear capability (since – clearly – no one else will).

Would Israelis hold back from a planned attack of Iran if they believed the United States would prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons?  Probably.  But the problem is, they clearly don’t believe that any more.  And they certainly no longer believe that America under Barack Hussein Obama is on their side.  When George Bush was president, fully 88% of Israeli Jews believed the president was “pro-Israel”; today under Obama, only 31% of Israeli Jews think so.

Such an event, of hated Israel swooping into an Islamic country to destroy their Russian-built nuclear facilities, would itself be a likely cataclysmic event.  Do you even dare to imagine how the Islamic world would react?  And realize that just such an event is very likely coming – and coming all-too soon.

Now Vice President Joe Biden predicted that Barack Obama would be “tested” by an “international crisis” that would test his mettle.  He went on to say:

I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, ‘Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?’ We’re gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I’m asking you now, I’m asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you’re going to have to reinforce us.”“There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, ‘Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don’t know about that decision’,” Biden continued. “Because if you think the decision is sound when they’re made, which I believe you will when they’re made, they’re not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they’re popular, they’re probably not sound.”

Joe Biden quickly turned his discussion of this international crisis and Barack Obama’s seeming poor handling of said crisis to politics and the hopes of Democrats.  But Iran obtaining nuclear weapons won’t be about politics; it will be about Armageddon.

Frighteningly, Barack Obama’s very own VP has said that Barack Obama is most certainly not ready for what may very well prove to be the most terrifying crisis in human history:

“There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama’s lack of experience than Joe Biden,” McCain spokesman Ben Porritt said in a written statement, according to CNN. “Biden has denounced Barack Obama’s poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing — that Barack Obama is not ready to be president.”

Biden frequently raised questions about Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience during the primaries. “I think he can be ready, but right now, I don’t believe he is,” Biden said during one debate. “The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.”

North Korea looms large, and may loom far larger in the days soon-to-come.  But a nuclear Iran is an even more terrifying prospect.  You’ll see.

As I turn to Iraq – and then to how Iraq relates to Iran in the context of Bible prophecy – allow me to first discuss Joel Rosenberg.

A Wikipedia article on Joel Rosenberg probably provides the most concise summary (accessed June 23, 2009):

Rosenberg’s novels have attracted those interested in Bible Prophecy, due to several of his fictional elements of his books that would occur after his writing of books. Nine months before the September 11th attacks, Rosenberg wrote a novel with a kamikaze plane attack on an American city. Five months before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he wrote a novel about war with Saddam Hussein, the death of Yasser Arafat eight months before it occurred, a story with Russia, Iran, and Libya forming a military alliance against Israel occurring the date of publishing,^[7] the rebuilding of the city of Babylon,^[12] Iran vowing to have Israel “wiped off the face of the map forever” five months before Iranian President Ahmadinejad said the same,^[13] and the discovery of huge amounts of oil and natural gas in Israel (which happened in January 2009).^[14] The U.S. News & World Report have referred to him as a “Modern Nostradamus,”^[15] although Rosenberg tries to play down those proclamations, stating that “I am not a clairvoyant, a psychic, or a ‘Modern Nostradamus,’ as some have suggested.”^[16] He gives the credit for his accurate predictions to studying Biblical prophecy and applying to the modern world.^[16]

Why did Rosenberg predict that there would be a “kamikaze plane attack on an American city” by Islamic terrorists?  Because he accurately understood the evil at the heart of Islam.

Why did Rosenberg predict a war between Saddam Hussein and the United States resulting in the overthrow of Saddam and his brutal regime?  That’s where it gets interesting.

Joel Rosenberg had done a thorough study of the Book of Ezekiel and of the Bible (as a couple of overlapping articles summarize – Article 1; – Article 2).  He learned that one day, according to the Bible, a massive army under the leadership of Russia and many of its former republics (Magog) and Iran (Persia) and consisting of many countries that are today Islamic [e.g. “Cush” (modern-day Sudan and Ethiopia); “Put” (modern-day Libya); “Gomer” (modern-day Turkey); “Beth-togarmah” (modern-day Armenia); and many peoples “along the mountains of Israel” (modern-day Lebanon and possibly Syria)] would form an “exceedingly great army” that would one day attack Israel.

What Rosenberg noted was the absence of two countries: Egypt and Babylon (i.e. Iraq).  Egypt had been a perennial enemy of Israel until 1973, when Egypt alone in all the Arab/Muslim world forged a historic peace treaty with the state of Israel.  That left Iraq.  Rosenberg asked himself, “How could a nation like Iraq, under the leadership of someone like Saddam Hussein, NOT participate in this mega-colossal-last-days attack on Israel?

Rosenberg concluded that Saddam Hussein WOULDN’T refrain from such an attack.  And that meant that Saddam Hussein would have to go.

And so, NINE MONTHS before the 9/11 attack, Rosenberg in his “fiction” created a scenario in which terrorists flew a plane in a kamikaze attack, and the United States took out the Iraqi regime and replaced it with a stable Western-friendly government.

And because the Bible is the true Word of an all-knowing God who knows the end from the beginning as revealed through His prophets, the scenario laid out by Joel Rosenberg turned out to be eerily true.  It wasn’t a “lucky guess”; it was based upon the God who had revealed the last days to an inspired prophet named Ezekiel some 2,600 years ago.

Thus we have Iraq, its tyrant who had filled mass graves with the bodies of at least 400,000 of his own people, overthrown and a stable democracy growing in his place.  And we have Iran, a country strongly allied with Russia; a country bent on acquiring nuclear weapons; a country that has announced its intent on the destruction of Israel; a country under the leadership of men who in all likelihood believe in establishing a future by an act of violent apocalypse.  Two countries on two very different paths.  And both paths known to God 2,600 years ago.

Obama Enraging Enemies And Alienating Allies

Remember how the left kept screeching that Bush had alienated our allies and enraged our enemies? Remember how they said that Barack Obama would make the world love us again? Well, the Democrats get to wear their soiled underwear over their own heads, now. Because now we get to see on a nearly daily basis just how truly full of pure partisan garbage they have been for years.

N. Korea Says It Conducted 2nd Nuclear Test

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea announced Monday that it successfully carried out a second underground nuclear test, less than two months after launching a rocket widely believed to be a test of its long-range missile technology.

North Korea, incensed by U.N. Security Council condemnation of its April 5 rocket launch, had warned last month that it would restart it rogue nuclear program, conduct a second atomic test as a follow-up to its first one in 2006, and carry out long-range missile tests.

And North Korea just test-fired a missile. “The Yonhap news agency report Monday comes just hours after the communist nation declared that it successfully conducted a nuclear test.”

And what is North Korea saying today?

N. Korea threatens to attack US, S. Korea warships

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea threatened military action Wednesday against U.S. and South Korean warships plying the waters near the Koreas’ disputed maritime border, raising the specter of a naval clash just days after the regime’s underground nuclear test.

Pyongyang, reacting angrily to Seoul’s decision to join an international program to intercept ships suspected of aiding nuclear proliferation, called the move tantamount to a declaration of war.

But, but, but we’ve got OBAMA now. And the world is supposed to be wonderful again. Maybe Kim Jong-Il hasn’t heard that we’ve got Obama now?!?!

Obama did his “no preconditions appeasement offer” to Iran. And Iran responded by testing ballistic missiles in what is widely regarded as an open act of contempt and defiance of the United States.

We learned in March of this year that Iran can make 50 nukes with the material they’ve produced so far.

Iranian forces recently crossed into Iraq to launch attacks on Iraqi Kurds. In open defiance of the United States.

Obama wants to dialogue ad infinitum while “Iran vows to continue [it’s] nuclear program.”

And how is Obama responding to this Iranian resolve? Headline: “U.S. may cede to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

Israel – an alienated ally of the United States – is well aware that it has been betrayed by Barack Obama. And when Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear program – and it will – that will be a crisis that Barack Obama will have caused due to his own weakness and lack of resolve.

And the whole planet will erupt into “enraged enemies” and “alienated allies.”

As an additional plus of Obama’s weakness, the net result of an Iranian nuclear program will be that Sunni Muslim countries – who have worried over Shiite Iran’s nuclear ambitions – will develop their own nuclear weapons programs.

I’ve been SAYING that an Obama administration would allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons ALL ALONG. Back in April of last year, in urging support for McCain over either Obama or Clinton, I wrote:

A President John McCain can assure the Iranians, “We attacked Iraq when we believed they represented a threat to us, and we will do the same to you. You seriously might want to rethink your plans.” A President John McCain can say to Sunni Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, “We have stood by Iraq even when it was difficult, and we will do the same for you. You don’t need those weapons; the United States will be there for you.”

And Obama, who can’t say ANY of that, is already blinking.

But let’s leave the unpleasant future that will be caused by Barack Obama and continue our present tour of enraged enemies and alienated allies under his current rule.

Russia just warned Ukraine and Georgia (remember Obama’s pathetic and appeasing message to Russia following its invasion of Georgia?) over moving toward the West by joing NATO. They won’t stand for it. And they clearly aren’t even the least bit afraid of any American response.

Russia took Obama’s measure back in August 8, 2008. And they know his response will be to shrink back and conceal himself behind meaningless “citizen of the world”-speak that will enable Russia to do whatever it wants.

CNN reported on April 30th that “Terror attacks have spiked dramatically in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

And, goodness gracious, Pakistan and its 100 nuclear weapons are in very real danger of falling into the hands of the Taliban. A top adviser to the US Central Command has warned of the very real possibility of Pakistan collapsing within six months.

Well, that aint good. Wasn’t Obama supposed to make all our problems go away as he overcame all of Bush’s evilness with his magnificent wonderfulness?

Obama failed to win any support from European allies in Afghanistan, something he and his liberal allies repeatedly criticized Bush for failing to deliver as they promised that they would. The U.S. in Afghanistan is as much on its own as it ever was under Bush.

And so, while Obama sits atop the throne, the “security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating” under his rule. The U.N. says “Human rights in Afghanistan are worsening, marked by setbacks for women, attacks on freedoms and seeming impunity for perpetrators.”

Obama has called for the same sort of surge strategy in Afghanistan (see also here) that he himself personally demonized Bush for pursuing in Iraq.

Reporters in Iraq note “a dramatic increase in spectacular attacks against Iraqi civilians and increasing attacks against occupation forces” by al-Qaeda.

We are facing a growing problem with pirates off the coast of Africa. And Obama is facing a particularly significant threat from Sudan and its dictator, Omar al-Bashir.

Clearly, our enemies haven’t become our friends. Not even a little bit. In fact, they are more hostile and more aggressive than ever. Not that the propagandist media that spent years writing about how Bush creating unrest all over the world would ever point that out.

How about our friends and allies? Surely they love us more, now that Obama is president. Surely the days of alienation are over, right? RIGHT?

Not so much.

You remember me telling you that the EU isn’t giving Obama any help in Afghanistan? Well, they’re not giving Obama any help in closing down Gitmo, either. As much as they like to rail against America for the evils of Gitmo, they won’t take their own people back which would enable us to close it down. Just like they wouldn’t under Bush. And the same countries that won’t take their Gitmo detainees are using our other terrorist detention facility in Bagram as their reason.

That’s not very helpful. I feel alienation.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy basically thinks Obama is a turd, calling his policies “‘utterly immature’ and comprised of ‘formulations empty of all content.’” That rather sounds like a heaping dose of alienation talking, to me.

The EU president called Obama’s stimulus spending “the road to hell.” Mirek Topolanek further said that President Barack Obama’s massive stimulus package and banking bailout “will undermine the stability of the global financial market.” The ABC News article already cited reports on “simmering European differences with Washington.”

Doesn’t that kind of sound like “alienation”? Doesn’t it?

Obama had previously ignited fear of a trade war with Europe with his “buy American” policy. The EU trade commissioner warned Obama that Europe would fight back. Obama also ignited the threat of a trade war with our third largest trade partner, Mexico, after he tried to renege on a trade deal in order to reward US unions.

Obama also inspired a great deal of British outrage toward America when he casually snubbed Prime Minister Gordon Brown and insulted our greatest ally.

Obama then proceeded to insult and undermine our relationship with our second greatest ally, Israel, with an inexcusable gesture of cold indifference for a top Israeli general.

Perhaps liberals believe that Obama’s disgrace America tour was a step in the right direction. I think he made a fool out of himself and undermined the prestige and respect of the once-great United States of America.

Russia and China have similarly sounded, well, VERY ALIENATED toward Obama and his policies.

Russia has warned Obama about what they view as his ruinous socialist policies.

Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”.

“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”

Luo Ping, Director-general for the China Banking Regulatory Commission, is on record saying, “We want some kind of a guarantee that your money is going to be worth something if you keep spending so much over there and devalue not only your currency but the currencies throughout the world.” He went on to say, “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion, $2 trillion, or more dollars, we know the dollar is going to depreciate.”

And, yeah. Don’t think I didn’t notice from the above link that the mainstream media truly doesn’t want us to know what China thinks about the ruinous course we are pursuing under Obama.

And all the while, we’re warned that “an economic storm with China is still coming for Obama.” In other words, in terms of alienation with China, you aint seen nothin’ yet.

Pardon me for pointing this out, but I’m just not feeling the love.

The same propaganda machine that undercut and undermined President Bush at every imaginable turn is going well out of its way to avoid reporting on just how much damage Barack Obama has done on the international front. They who routinely blamed Bush for everything won’t blame Obama for anything.

Whether liberals are honest about it or not, Obama has been a gigantic dud in terms of the glorious promise of overcoming all the bitterness in the world that Bush supposedly created. For one thing, Obama hasn’t actually “overcome” anything of the sort; for another, he has created a great deal of international bitterness all by himself.

U.S. vs. Nuclear Iran: Russia, China Block Any Resolution – Again

The occasion of the moment is the state visit of the new Russian President to China, during which a joint announcement was issued for the headline of the day: China, Russia condemn US missile defense plans. It is considered noteworthy that in his first state visit as Russian President, Putin turned to the West. Medvedev is turning to the East.

Some are saying that Russia and China are announcing themselves not as enemies, but adversaries, of the United States. I shall leave it to more nuanced analysts than myself to explain the difference.

In any event, we can understand why second-rate nuclear powers such as Russia and China would fear a missile defense system. The possession of nuclear weapons has historically made countries invulnerable to any attack; a missile defense system capable of fulfilling Ronald Reagan’s dream of rendering such weapons obsolete would nullify the historic advantage of nuclear weapons and make the last remaining superpower -as the greatest NON-nuclear military in the world – all the more powerful.

The United States’ contention that its missile defense system is geared toward preventing a missile attack by such radicalized countries as Iran and North Korea have not overcome the Russian and Chinese fear regarding the long-range viability of their own nuclear deterrents.

But the issue that is most relevant to me is the building threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, and the successful longstanding effort of Russia and China to prevent the United States from doing anything to deter Iran in the international community.

A few articles to establish the point:

Reuters, from today:

PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) – The United States will aggressively impose more sanctions on Iran as long as it refuses to give up sensitive nuclear work and uses the world’s financial system for “terrorism,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday.

However, the United States would face an uphill battle from veto-wielding Security Council members China and Russia, which oppose further punitive measures against Iran.

The New York Times, from August 2006:

Although Russia agreed to the Security Council’s resolution on July 31, Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov’s remarks made it clear that Russia would not support taking the next step that the United States and Britain have called for: imposing sanctions against Iran or its leaders over its nuclear programs. The Council set Aug. 31 as the deadline for Iran to respond to its demand.

Russia has repeatedly expressed opposition to punitive steps, even as President Vladimir V. Putin and others have called on Iran to cooperate with international inspectors and suspend its enrichment activity.

But on Friday Mr. Ivanov went further, saying the issue was not “so urgent” that the Security Council should consider sanctions and expressing doubt that they would work in any case.

The Council on Foreign Relations, from April 2006:

The referral of the Iran nuclear file to the UN Security Council opens up the prospect economic sanctions could be used to pressure Tehran to end its uranium enrichment program, feared as a cover for developing nuclear weapons. U.S. and European diplomats have stressed that council action is necessary to maintain pressure on Iran and the threat of sanctions is seen as important leverage for the council. But the United Nations’ powerful security body has moved away from sanctions as a coercive tool in recent years. Two veto-wielding members of the council, Russia and China, have virtually ruled out sanctions in dealing with the Iran crisis, leading some experts to call for nations to band together outside of the United Nations to plan meaningful economic penalties.

It might be interesting to note at this point that both Russia and China have been involved with nuclear technology transfers to Iran. Some sources:

According to the Journal MERIA:

Unfortunately, for the time being the United States and Russia differ on which countries qualify as rogue states that must be contained or confronted. Like North Korea or China, Russia–the soothing or indignant pronouncements of its leaders notwithstanding–according to many experts and officials in the area, remains the world’s leading source of WMD-related items and expertise proliferation.

According to the Times:

RUSSIA defied stern American warnings yesterday to announce that it had agreed to start shipping nuclear fuel to Iran in three months.

Within hours President Bush vowed to stand by Israel if its security was threatened by Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. He said that it would be unacceptable for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

According to Asian Research:

China has been providing missiles and nuclear technology to Iran for years, experts told a U.S. security committee last week, adding that transactions have continued despite Chinese government promises to improve regulation and prevent nuclear proliferation.

“China has worked actively to dilute the effectiveness of any global response,” said Ilan Berman from the American Foreign Policy Council. “Tehran’s intransigence in this stand-off has been made possible in part by its strategic partnership with Beijing.”

The Heritage Foundation says we should Confront China’s Support for Iran’s Nuclear Weapons, noting that:

China’s security relationship with Iran is broad. Despite over a decade of protests from Washington, China continues to export nuclear technology, chemical weapons precursors, and guided missiles to Iran. Indeed, China is one of Iran’s top two weapons suppliers (with Russia). A report in 2004 by the U.S.-China Security and Review Commission stated that “Chinese entities continue to assist Iran with dual-use missile-related items, raw materials and chemical weapons-related production equipment and technology” and noted that the transfers took place after the Chinese government pledged in December 2003 to withhold missile technology Iran. The Central Intelligence Agency reported in 2004 that “Chinese entities are continuing work on a zirconium production facility at Esfahan that will enable Iran to produce cladding for reactor fuel.” Although Iran was a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and was required to accept International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards on its production of zirconium fuel cladding, Iran made no moves to do so, and China exerted no influence to the contrary.

This is a repeat of the similar thwarting by Russian, French, and Chinese efforts to undermine the United States from having any success at attaining meaningful resolutions that would have forced Iraq to open itself up to meaningful weapons inspections. And, just as was the case in Iraq – with Saddam Hussein using the U.N. Oil for Food Program to secure the cooperation of the aforementioned corrupt countries – we are seeing the identical trend building against any effort to place any kind of deterrent against an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

This stuff is eerily similar to the Armageddon scenario depicted in the Book of Revelation and such passages as Ezekiel chapters 37-38. And while I’m not saying that the United States should base its foreign policy on Bible prophecy, I very much am saying that we very much should be acting according to our clear national interests. And we are seeing a very frightening development – a nuclear armed Iran which could be the hair trigger to World War III – happening before our very eyes.

What are we going to do? Should the United States passively sit by while a violent and apocalyptic regime such as Iran develops nuclear weapons? Should we similarly tolerate the resulting nuclear proliferation in the Sunni Arab world as a deterrence against the Shiite Iranian bomb?

One thing is increasingly clear: the United Nations is completely incapable of providing any meaningful resolution to one genuine international crisis after another. With its endemic corruption and incompetence, and with the five permanent member states having diametrically opposed agendas, there is simply no possibility that any meaningful action can occur within the halls of the U.N.

This makes the Iraq War all the more relevant as a baromter for the response to Iran’s nuclear campaign.

As I have argued in past articles, how is an American president who condemned the Iraq War, and who calls for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, going to respond against Iran in this hostile international environment?

How could such a president – who condemned the invasion of Iraq – now permit an attack on Iran, or even issue a meaningful threat of such an attack? The same murky “do they have these weapons or not?” scenario will again be the case in Iran; and the same staunch refusal of veto-wielding U.N. members that stymied any resolution against Iraq will again be the case with Iran.

Furthermore, how can a president who has demanded an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from the vulnerable, fledgling Iraq ever possess the moral authority to promise Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan that the United States – which does NOT want to see a nuclear arms race in the Islamic world – that it will protect them from a nuclear Shiite state at all costs?

John McCain – his considered flaws aside – is the only candidate who can meaningfully confront Iran and say, “The United States attacked Iraq because we believed it was developing weapons that threatened our vital national security – and I assure you that we will do the same to you unless you stop what you are doing.” He alone can assure the Sunni Arab states, “The United States stood by Iraq even when it was difficult – and I assure you that we will do the same for you.”

We are entering an increasingly frightening world in which we desperately need a leader who has the wisdom and the policy to prevent the Armageddon scenario from unfolding. As was the case in the last great conflagration, strength – and NOT weakness – provides the only chance of avoiding a future cataclysmic horror.  Let it be noted that – to the extent that Iran DID set aside its nuclear weapons program in 2003 – it did so because a powerful American president invaded its next-door-neighbor over its own weapons program.

As a P.S. I have no doubt that some will skim this and say, “There the conservatives go again, using the politics of fear for the sake of partisan advantage.” My response is that such a claim is meaningful if and only if I presented a false case. If I am wrong in contending that Russia and China are not blocking sanctions against Iran; if I am wrong in contending that Iran is a truly peaceful country with no hostile intentions, then present the case. But if I presented an accurate case, then the refusal to take a nuclear weapons-armed Iran seriously is simply a demonstration of such people’s foolishness and inability to comprehend reality.