WAR OF THE WORLDS

War of the Worlds - Hal Lindsey - www.hallindsey.com

The International Atomic Energy Administration expressed 'cautious optimism' about the chances of reaching an international agreement over Iran's nuclear program that would avert taking Iran before the United Nations Security Council. Mohammed el Baradei is betting that Russia will save the day.

Moscow put forth a compromise deal over the weekend that would move Iran's enrichment program to Russia where it could be monitored by Russian officials. This is an international diplomatic fiction, but international diplomacy relies on fiction as an element of standard diplomatic operating procedure.

Russia is unlikely to agree to any strong action while it negotiates with Iran on the proposal to move Tehran's enrichment program to Russian territory. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was due this week in Washington and New York to discuss the status of those talks with Bush administration officials and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

'Diplomatic fiction' allows the Palestinian Authority to be regarded as a legitimate, democratically elected government, while denying the equally democratically elected Hamas equal legitimacy. But without admitting that Hamas represents the majority of the Palestinian people since that would require the world to withdraw its demand for Palestinian statehood.

Diplomatic fiction allows Pakistan to simultaneously be the world's greatest proliferator of nuclear technology, one of the world's main proselytizers of radical Islamic theology, and still be Washington's principle ally against Islamic terrorism.

Diplomatic fiction allows Saudi Arabia to be the world's most repressive theocratic tyranny in the known universe and one of America's oldest and closest Middle Eastern ally.

And diplomatic fiction allows the entire world to pretend that a tiny, Western-style representative democracy willing to sacrifice almost anything for peace is the main stumbling block to peace with an enemy bound by religious duty to its annihilation.

Diplomatic fiction maintains that those who follow the fundamentals of Islam and interpret the Koran literally are terrorists -- but the book that all agree is the inspiration for Islamic terrorism -- is really the foundation for a moderate Islamic religion of peace and love.

Diplomatic fiction is useful in forestalling war. But it has yet to prevent one.

In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain forever sealed his historical legacy upon his return to Britain. Waving the agreement bearing Hitler's signature, he triumphantly announced that the agreement ensured that Britain should "have peace in our time."

Neville Chamberlain later briefed the British parliament on an agreement he had just signed with Adolf Hitler using a diplomatic fiction already being floated by nervous UN diplomats.

Ahmadinejad's warlike statements were really intended for domestic politics, not official Iranian policy. If the right diplomatic balance can be reached, Ahmadinejad will stand down.

Chamberlain made a similar argument about Hitler in 1938:

"After everything that has been said about the German Chancellor today and in the past, I do feel that the House ought to recognize the difficulty for a man in that position to take back such emphatic declarations as he had already made amidst the enthusiastic cheers of his supporters, and to recognize that in consenting, even though it were only at the last moment, to discuss with the representatives of other Powers those things which he had declared he had already decided once for all, was a real and a substantial contribution on his part."

The Munich Agreement stalled World War Two for eleven months. It couldn't have prevented it. Historians criticize Chamberlain's desperate last ditch appeasement effort, saying he should have realized by October, 1938, that war with the Third Reich was inevitable.

It would seem equally clear at this point in contemporary history that war with Iran is just as inevitable. Over the last few months, the president of Iran has declared it his country's mission to "erase Israel from the map" and has called the Holocaust a "myth".

Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani told reporters in Tehran that Iran would not abandon nuclear research or back down: "If Iran's nuclear dossier is referred to the U.N. Security Council, (large-scale) uranium enrichment will be resumed. If they want to use force, we will pursue our own path."

That isn't rhetoric in 2006, anymore than Hitler's 1938 rantings about Germany's destiny of global conquest was rhetoric. Hitler wanted a war. It was necessary to his occultic religious vision of a Thousand Year Reich. World War was the goal. Ahmadinejad also wants a world war. "Peace in our time" simply does not work well with fanatics.

A global war is necessary to his religious vision of the return of the 12 Imam, or 'the Mahdi'. After a meeting in Kuala Lumpur with the King of Malaysia, Ahmadinejad told reporters, "The near future will be in the hands of Islam."

"Ahmadinejad is on record as saying that he sees his main mission as being that of preparing the stage for the return of the Mahdi", said Ali Basrawi, an Iraqi Shiite political analyst living in London. "He belongs to a school of thought that believes the Mahdi would return only when the world is in deep crisis. That political philosophy, particularly if devoutly believed in, could lead to very erratic and unpredictable decisions by the president of a country on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons".

Shia Muslims believe Muhammad's family – the 12 Imams – were the best sources of knowledge about the Koran and Islam and were the most trusted carriers and protectors of Islamic tradition. They believe in a dynasty of Islamic authorities and promote a hereditary class of spiritual leaders they believe have divine powers.

The largest sect of the Shias, called The Twelvers, believe there were 12 imams after Muhammad and that the last one, Imam Mahdi, still lives, but he cannot be seen until Allah determines it is time to prepare the faithful for Judgment Day.

The 12th Imam, according to Muslim scholars, is also pictured in the Book of the Revelation as the Rider on the White Horse in Revelation 6:2.

Traditional Christian interpretation of Revelation 6:2 sees the Rider on the White Horse as symbolic of the antichrist's bloodless political rise to global power before unleashing the persecution of the Great Tribulation.

The rider on the white horse is followed by the Rider on the Red Horse;

"and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword." (Revelation 6:4)

Ahmadinejad believes the Mahdi will lead the forces of Islam to global conquest in a war that will cost the lives of a third of mankind. And he believes that he is destined by Allah to start that war.

The diplomatic fiction is that the UN can somehow threaten or cajole him out of fulfilling his divinely-appointed destiny by a threat of economic sanctions. (Ahmadinejad is a religious aesthetic who lives in a tiny apartment and drives a 20 year old car.)

And the plot continues to thicken.

Does this mean we are on the brink of the Gog-Magog War? It depends on how one defines 'brink'. Most interpreters of Bible prophecy put the Gog Magog War somewhere near the mid-point of the Tribulation Period, and there is an overwhelming body of Scripture to back up that position.

Other commentators put the Gog-Magog War somewhere near the beginning of the Tribulation Period, either just before, or just after, the Rapture of the Church. There is an equally impressive body of Scripture to support that position. As to which is absolutely right, it remains to be seen.

However, the Pentagon admits that even a successful massive airstrike against Iran's nuclear infrastructure won't end Iran's nuclear ambitions. At best, it might stall them for five years or so until they are able to rebuild.

Assuming the strike doesn't rebound into an all-out Islamic retaliatory war against the West, and, to this point, it isn't all that clear that it would. But it might.

And the clock just keeps ticking.
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