The Coming Holy War

All Christians who love Israel-and who want world peace-must be concerned about the growing terrorist threat in Iran.
Former prime minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu and I sat in my office in the fall of 2004 discussing the geopolitical realities of the Middle East. We talked just moments before we were to walk on the platform to celebrate the Night to Honor Israel event that my church sponsors every year. Television cameras were ready to carry our message to 90 million homes and more than 100 nations.

I asked Netanyahu where Iran was in its development of nuclear weapons. He candidly admitted that during his administration Israeli intelligence had informed the United States intelligence community that Iran was working on medium- and long-range nuclear missiles that would be capable of hitting London, New York City and Jerusalem.

Netanyahu continued with the shocking revelation that the U.S. intelligence community was very skeptical of the Israeli report. Later, Israeli intelligence provided photographic proof that Russian scientists who made nuclear weapons for the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War and were now unemployed were helping Iran achieve its dream of developing nuclear weapons.

I responded in amazement: “Can anyone possibly imagine the massive global, economic and political chaos if three long-range nuclear missiles simultaneously hit New York City and Wall Street, London, and Jerusalem? In one hour, worldwide economic collapse could be accomplished, and Western civilization would be crushed.”

If Iran cannot develop the sophisticated delivery system to deliver long-range nuclear missiles, they and other rogue terrorist states certainly will have the capability of producing a dirty nuclear bomb that can be delivered in a suitcase.

Can anyone in his right mind actually believe that the Islamic fanatics in charge of the Iranian government would not use these weapons on America (which they call “The Great Satan”) and on Israel, the eternal object of Islamic hatred in the Middle East?

Evidence of this plot is mounting. On February 3, 2004, The Daily Telegraph of London splashed this headline: “Confession by the Father of Pakistan’s Atomic Bomb: ‘I’ve Sold Nuclear Secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea.’” The article confirmed that some of the world’s most notorious “rogue states” now have nuclear secrets.

A man named A.Q. Khan, age 71, told investigators in an 11-page confession that “he had provided the secrets to other Muslim countries-so they could become nuclear powers and strengthen the Islamic world.” Officials said that Khan first began to transfer designs, drawings, and components for gas centrifuges to Iran between 1989 and 1991. There is clear evidence that Iran has been seeking to develop nuclear weapons for 20 years.

The Jerusalem Post announced on August 5, 2003: “Iran Can Produce Nuclear Bomb by 2005.” The article confirmed that Iran would have the machinery and materials needed to make a nuclear bomb by 2004 and would have an operative nuclear weapons program by 2005.

According to the Post, Iran “has been engaged in a pattern of clandestine activity that has concealed weapons work from International Inspectors. Technology and scientists from Russia, China, North Korea and Pakistan have propelled Iran’s nuclear program much closer to producing a bomb than Iraq ever was.”

Israel is very aware of this looming threat of nuclear attack from Iran. In his book Countdown to Crisis, Kenneth Timmerman writes: “Israeli leaders have been warning that it won’t be long. On January 24, 2005, [Israeli intelligence director] Meir Dagan told Israeli parliamentarians that ‘by the end of 2005 the Iranians will reach the point of no return from the technological perspective of creating a uranium-enrichment capability.’ Once you have that capability,” he added, “you are home free.”

Vice President Dick Cheney addressed this looming threat on a radio program in January 2004 just before the inauguration. “Iran is right at the top of the administration’s list of world trouble spots,” he said. If nothing is done about Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Cheney added, there is concern that Israel “might well decide to act first” to destroy Iranian nuclear and missile sites and let others “worry about cleaning up the mess afterwards.”

Retired Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, head of the Military Committee of the Center for Security Policy and a member of the Iran Policy Committee, wrote recently in Executive Intelligence Review, “We’ve got to bring the hammer down on Iran.” Vallely states: “We cannot let radical Islam and the Iranians destabilize the Middle East and the world. … I know the Israelis are prepared to take very decisive action militarily.”

Many of us have forgotten that Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 and that the world press unanimously condemned the Jewish state, accusing it of gunboat diplomacy. Time has proved that Israel did the right thing for the world by destroying Saddam Hussein’s ability to manufacture nuclear weapons. Our troops would have faced nuclear weapons when America went to war in Iraq in 1992 during Desert Storm.

In an interview in Paris on July 13, 2005, with a defector from Iran’s secretive nuclear establishment, the Iran Focus news service asked this question: “How soon will they have the bomb?” The defector, a physicist, replied: “The current leadership in Tehran sees nuclear weapons as an indispensable part of its strategy.”

When asked how the arrival of Iran’s new, ultraconservative president changed things, the defector replied: “Now that you have at the head of the executive branch a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards with a track record as the one Ahmadinejad has, the nuclear weapons program will receive a great boost.”

Are We Facing Global War?

Iran has threatened bloody retaliation if attacked, so the Pentagon’s military planners are conducting war games to be prepared for any number of Iranian responses-from attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq to missile strikes on Israel to releasing the al-Qaida network to launch terrorist attacks on the United States. If Iran’s nuclear facilities are attacked, you can be reasonably sure that Iran will counterattack-either with nuclear missiles or with a series of dirty bombs sold to al-Qaida sleeper cells in America who are waiting for the signal to attack.

If September 11 proved anything, it showed that America is not immune from attack by our enemies. It also proves beyond any reasonable doubt that our enemies are willing to use whatever weapons they have to kill as many of us as possible. In Islam, the highest honor is to die a martyr by killing Christians and Jews. The man who does this supposedly will be resurrected in an Islamic heaven surrounded by 70 virgins.

Several authorities have said Iran could have a nuclear bomb ready by April 2006. If Israel strikes beforehand, there doubtless will be a vast pan-Arabic Islamic army assembled to attack Israel.Once again, Jerusalem has become the target. We are standing on the brink of a nuclear Armageddon.

The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty. Israel and America must confront Iran’s nuclear ability and willingness to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. For Israel to wait is to risk committing national suicide.

Iran’s Terrorist President

The demonstration of Iran’s hatred is most obvious in the election of the country’s radical new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has been positively identified as being involved in the 1979 hostage crisis in Tehran. On June 30, 2005, The Washington Times reported that former hostage Charles Scott, 73, a retired Army colonel, said he recognized Ahmadinejad as one of his captors.

Scott said that as soon as he saw Ahmadinejad’s picture in the paper he knew he was “one of the top two or three leaders.”

“The new president of Iran is a terrorist,” he told the Times.

Other former hostages have identified Ahmadinejad as one of their captors. Although there has been controversy about whether or not Ahmadinejad was the person pictured in the article, even the Arabic TV network Aljazeera has indicated his involvement.

On June 19, 2005, Aljazeera reported that Ahmadinejad attended planning meetings for the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy. The network also has identified him as a “former Islamic Revolutionary Guard commander, unabashedly conservative and loyal to Iran’s Supreme leader Ayat Allah Ali Khamenei.”

In comments following his election, the new president vowed to ignite an Islamic revolution. “Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution has arisen. … The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world.”

His most inflammatory statement came last October, weeks after his election, when he called for the annihilation of Israel: “The occupation regime of Qods [Jerusalem, or Israel] must be wiped off from the map of the world, and with the help of the Almighty, we shall soon experience a world without America and Zionism. … A world without America and Israel is both possible and feasible.”

What will be Iran’s response to Israel’s military attack of their nuclear weapons plans? How will Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Libya respond? If these Arab nations unite their forces under Russia’s leadership, which has been helping Iran develop nuclear weapons for several years, an inferno could engulf the Middle East.

Iran has indicated that it will never suspend conversion of uranium ore, and it has rejected a resolution from the U.N. nuclear agency urging it to stop the conversion of uranium at its atomic plant in Isfahan. Meanwhile, Russia has announced “a dramatic expansion of its cooperation with Iran on building nuclear power plants, ignoring Bush administration concerns that the program could help Iran build a nuclear bomb.”

All indications are that Iran is moving full-steam ahead to do this. According to a confidential report by the U.N’s nuclear watchdog agency obtained in September 2005, Iran has produced almost 15,000 pounds of the gas used to enrich uranium. Former International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear inspector David Albright said in an interview that the amount would be enough for one atomic bomb.

In response to Iran’s position on nuclear power, President Bush recently stated during a speech before an Arab audience: “The use of force is the last option for any [U.S.] president. We have used force in the recent past to secure our country.”

These are perilous times that require God’s people to pray-and to stand on God’s side in defense of the Jewish people, who have been targeted for genocide.

Shocking Secrets

In his new book, Jerusalem Countdown, John Hagee reveals a diabolical plot.

Texas pastor John Hagee has been traveling to Israel regularly since 1978. Rabbis in his own city of San Antonio, as well as Jewish leaders across the U.S., have come to respect him as a true friend of Israel, partly because he has raised millions of dollars to help Jewish charitable causes.

Because of Hagee’s love for the Jewish people, he has connected with key Israeli leaders and gained access to inside information about crucial security situations in Israel. He has developed a network of confidential sources who have a clear focus on critical geopolitical developments in Israel and the Middle East.

During the writing of his new book, Jerusalem Countdown, released in January from Charisma House, Hagee provided the transcript of a telephone conversation he had on May 2, 2005, with an unidentified Israeli leader.

In it, the source confirms what the United States intelligence community has feared-and at times has been unwilling to acknowledge.

The telephone interview, which is published in its entirety in the book, includes these comments:

Hagee: I just wanted to revisit some of the things that we talked about in our last conversation when you and I were alone in my office. Specifically, what we were talking about was Israel and Iran. In our conversation, we discussed Iran’s progress in making a nuclear bomb. Can you tell me again how many stages there are in the making of that nuclear bomb?

Source: Yes. There are either five or six. It depends, but usually there are five stages. They have estimated that they have about 1-1/2 stages to finish, and this can be done within a year to a year and a half.

Hagee: OK, 12 to 18 months. Source: Experts say two years, but then, I don’t think that the Western world can take chances and wait for two years.

Hagee: Is Iran further along with the making of this nuclear bomb than America believes?

Source: I don’t know. Last week, [Russian President] Vladimir Putin visited Israel. And he said the Russians could prepare the uranium for the Iranians in a way that it could be used for peaceful purposes only and is restricted from military purposes. But once you get enriched uranium, you cannot guarantee that it will only be used for peaceful purposes. It can be converted to military purposes.

Hagee: So the Russians are helping Iran build this nuclear bomb?

Source: Not only the Russians, but also the French and Germans. They said that what they are helping [build] can be used only for peace or for power.

Hagee: Do your intelligence sources in Israel tell you how many locations there are in Iran where they’re manufacturing this bomb?

Source: There are six locations, and previously I left you a map the last time I was there.

Hagee: I have the map. Do you believe that Israel will bomb Iran sometime between April of 2006 and September of 2006?

Source: I believe so. Pastor, you know more than anybody else that it is not Israel’s obligation to commit national suicide.