• Yemen: “The Houthis have received anywhere between $10m and $25m a year since 2010.”
• Syria: “Assad government forces and its allied militias received between $15bn and $25bn over the first five years of the conflict, amounting to between $3bn and $5bn per year.”[12]
Despite Iran’s strong influence in the region, commentator Alireza Nader writes, “One thing is clear: while Iran may appear to have the upper hand in Syria and perhaps the Middle East, Russia appears to be pulling the real strings.”[13] This is exactly what we should anticipate if the Russian-led coalition of Ezekiel 38 is on the horizon.
Iran’s game plan may be a “Shiite full moon” across the Middle East—a clear path to the Mediterranean—but Iran’s main ambition is the destruction of the Jewish state. Israel fears Iran much more than it fears ISIS. Iran has a sophisticated military and a large army and is pursuing the nuclear prize. The Iran nuclear deal has temporarily frozen Iran’s nuclear pursuits, yet the restrictions are only temporary. In exchange for placing a hold on its nuclear program, Iran received more than $100 billion to build up its military machine and support its surrogates.
Iran agreed to freeze its nuclear development in return for lifted sanctions, but these restrictions disappear after ten years. Moreover, there’s always the risk of Iranian covert activity in the meantime. In violation of a UN resolution, Iran has an active ballistic missile program, which is useful for only one thing—delivering a nuclear payload. Iran is waiting but also working. The growing connection between North Korea and Iran is troubling.
The clock is ticking.
No nation has expressed its hatred of the Jewish state more vehemently and viciously than Iran. With rabid regularity, Iran calls for Israel’s annihilation. If there’s any doubt that Iran still despises Israel and wants to see Israel wiped off the face of the earth, their military hardware tells the tale:
Iran displayed various missile systems in a military parade in Tehran on Tuesday, many of which were emblazoned with slogans calling for the death of Israel….
“Some of the trucks carrying weapons were adorned with banners showing a fist punching through a blue Star of David and the slogan ‘Death to Israel’ in Persian,” Agence France-Presse reported. Another truck at the event had “Death to Israel” emblazoned on its side in both Persian and Arabic, as well as “Down with Israel” in English and an image of the Israeli flag on fire.[14]
If this were not bad enough, Iran is propelled by its “Twelver” brand of Shiite Islam, which focuses on the coming of the Twelfth Imam—Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi. Twelvers believe that in the ninth century he disappeared in the mosque of Samarra as a young boy without leaving any descendants. They believe that since that time he has been hidden by God—thus his alternate title “Hidden Imam.” He’s also known as the Mahdi (Arabic for “rightly guided one”).
For centuries Shiites have been waiting for the Mahdi to emerge from hiding to bring global victory and usher in an era of righteousness. Their eschatological view teaches that the Mahdi will return near the end of the world. Joel Rosenberg gives a helpful synopsis of the eschatological ideology that fuels Iran:
Shias believe the Mahdi will return in the last days to establish righteousness, justice, and peace. When he comes, they say, the Mahdi will bring Jesus with him. Jesus will be a Muslim and will serve as his deputy, not as King of kings and Lord of lords as the Bible teaches, and he will force non-Muslims to choose between following the Mahdi or death….
One thing that is fairly well agreed upon among devout “Twelvers” is that the Mahdi will end apostasy and purify corruption within Islam. He is expected to conquer the Arabian Peninsula, Jordan, Syria, “Palestine,” Egypt and North Africa, and eventually the entire world. During this time, he and Jesus will kill between 60 and 80 percent of the world’s population, specifically those who refuse to convert to Islam.[15]
Based on this ideology, and Iran’s obsession with wiping out Israel, Rosenberg has rightly called Iran’s mullah regime an “apocalyptic, genocidal death cult.”[16]
Certainly Iran’s Twelver ideology is a game changer. Iranian politics and aspirations cannot be divorced from this ideology. They believe the United States is the “Great Satan” and Israel is the “Little Satan.”[17] Both are considered obstacles that need to be removed for the Mahdi’s return. Added to all this, Twelvers believe it is their duty to hasten the Mahdi’s coming, which they believe will occur in a time of chaos and turmoil. They believe they can put out the “welcome mat” for the Mahdi.
These views can be puzzling to Western minds, but even other Muslims are perplexed by Iran’s ideology. The crown prince of Saudi Arabia expressed his inability to dialogue with Iran due to its belief in the coming of the Twelfth Imam:
The prince said that dialogue with Iran was impossible because of its belief in the Imam Mahdi, the so-called hidden imam, who many Shiites believe is a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad who will return to save the world from destruction. “Their stance is that the awaited Mahdi will come, and they need to create a fertile environment for the arrival of the awaited Mahdi, and they need to take over the Islamic world,” he said. “Where are the common points that we might be able to reach an understanding on with this regime?”[18]
If fellow Muslims can’t reason with Iran due to its apocalyptic views, how can Israel or the West ever hope to reach any common ground? Iran is driven by a dogma that seeks to overrun the Islamic world—and annihilate Israel.
What we’re witnessing in Iran strikingly sets the stage for the events in Ezekiel 38–39.
The Ottoman empire, centered in Turkey, lasted for more than six hundred years and occupied the land of Israel for four hundred years. In the wake of World War I, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey and served as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. For almost a hundred years, while dominated by Islam, Turkey has remained a secular republic ruled by a parliament.
In the last decade, much has changed with the ascent of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He has dominated Turkish politics since 2002. Erdoğan served as mayor of Istanbul (elected in 1994), as prime minister (beginning in 2003), and as president (since August 2014). Erdoğan towers over Turkey’s political landscape. Since his rise to power, many have feared that he’s an Islamist with ambition for greater power. Under Erdoğan, Turkey has been on the road to authoritarianism for several years. Years ago, Erdoğan likened democracy to “a train that you get off once you reach your destination.”[19] We’ve learned a great deal recently about the destination he had in mind.
Erdoğan leveraged an attempted coup in July 2016 to purge the police force and military, strengthening his grip on the nation. Some have questioned whether the coup was secretly orchestrated by Erdoğan to justify his subsequent power grab. There’s no way to know, but the result is the same: more power for the president.
A controversial referendum vote on April 16, 2017, narrowly passed (51.4 percent), giving sweeping new powers to President Erdoğan. The referendum promised to bring these (and other) changes:
12
Karim El-Bar, “Proxies and Politics: Why Iran Funds Foreign Militias,”
13
Alireza Nader, “Iran at Putin’s Mercy,”
14
“Iran Threatens ‘Death to Israel’ at Military Parade,”
15
Joel C. Rosenberg, “Why Iran’s Top Leaders Believe That the End of Days Has Come,”
16
Joel C. Rosenberg, “Understanding Egypt: The Twelfth Imam, and the End of Days,”
18
Ben Hubbard, “Dialogue with Iran Is Impossible, Saudi Arabia’s Defense Minister Says,”
19
Ariel Ben Solomon, “Erdogan’s Regime Becoming More Dictatorship Than Democracy,”