Iran Prepares For War And Prepares Conditions For The Mahdi's Arrival

Interesting developments from the Middle East as we inch closer and closer to the tipping point:

'If Iran Reaches Critical Point In Nuke Drive, Israel Will Attack'

In a little-noticed exchange Tuesday at the Senate Armed Services Committee, a top US general said he had no doubt Israel would attack Iran if the Islamic Republic reached a critical point in its nuclear weapons drive. Furthermore, said General James Mattis, Israel could so without the assistance of the United States.

Mattis, who is retiring this month as head of the US army’s Central Command, which includes the Middle East and North Africa, was responding to questions from Sen. Lindsey Graham, who asked him whether he believed Israel would strike at Iran if the regime “reached a critical point in terms of nuclear capability.”

Responded Mattis: “The Israelis have said so; I take them at their word.”

Graham followed up by asking whether Israel would need US assistance to carry out such an attack. Said Mattis, “They could conduct a strike without our help.”

In the same session, Mattis said flatly that sanctions were not preventing Iran’s nuclear progress, adding that he had prepared a military option for the president.

A simple “No, sir” was Mattis’s response when asked whether “the current diplomatic and economic efforts to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear capability” were working.

He said the regime in Iran knows “it can’t win the affection of its own people,” was concerned sanctions could turn its people against it, and might be prepared to even give up its nuclear effort if it feared its survival in power was at stake. “I think we have to continue sanctions, but have other options ready.”

“We have to stop Iran’s nuclear enrichment program before it’s too late. Words alone will not stop Iran. Sanctions alone will not stop Iran. Sanctions must be coupled with a clear and credible military threat if sanctions fail,” Netanyahu told a room of some 13,000 AIPAC supporters in Washington by satellite feed from Jerusalem.

Iran Orders Terrorists To Prepare For War

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered all of the Islamic regime’s armed forces to prepare for war, WND learned Tuesday.

According to a source in the Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit, the regime believes Israel is on the verge of an attack, which could then draw America into the conflict.

Hundreds of ballistic missiles are ready to be launched against Israel and U.S. military bases in the region, the source said, and all terror groups that have long been positioned in Europe and America are ready to act should war break out.

While the regime has called last week’s negotiations held in Kazakhstan “a turning point” between Iran and the 5-plus-1 countries – the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany – it is stalling for time to complete its nuclear weapons development, at which point it believes Israel and the West will have no choice but to accept a nuclear-armed Iran, the source said. However, regime officials do not believe Israel will wait it out and hence the preparations for war, he added.

WND reported exclusively on Feb. 28 about a warning by the regime’s armed forces deputy chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, that al-Qaida operatives will soon attack America and Europe, even as a second terror team sent by the Islamic regime is about to enter the U.S.

The deputy chief of the Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Hossein Salami,recently warned that the regime’s ballistic missiles could devastate the enemy and reach beyond the region.

“The range of our defensive capability expands thousands of kilometers beyond our borders,” he said.

Regime officials have been talking of an imminent coming of the last messiah, advising loyalists to prepare the conditions for such an event. Shiites believe the 12th Imam, Mahdi, will descend to Earth at the time of Armageddon.

Recently, Ali Saidi, Khamenei’s representative to the Revolutionary Guards, told the forces that the Coming is close and that, “The fourth way (of bringing about the arrival of the Mahdi) is by preparing upheaval in the Middle East, and so long as there is not total upheaval in Middle East, then the Imam of the Era (Mahdi) will not arrive.”

Ayatollah Khazali, a member of the Assembly of Experts, the body that chooses the supreme leader, told the regime’s magazine Pasdar Islam (the Guardian of Islam) that the Coming is close and that all enemies of Islam will be destroyed.

“Rest assured that Israel will be destroyed,” he said. “America is also getting weaker every day… our revolution was the preliminary step for the Coming.”

U.S. And EU Call Out Iran's Delay Tactics At IAEA Meeting

(gee, what was their first clue?)

 On the heels of last week's Iranian nuclear talks in Kazakhstan both the US and the EU voiced their concerns about the Islamic Republic's nuclear program at the board meeting of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency on Wednesday.

The US warned Iran that it faces further international isolation and pressure if it fails to address concerns about its nuclear program.

"We are deeply concerned with what appears to be Iran's unwavering commitment to deception, defiance, and delay," said the US Ambassador to the IAEA Joseph Macmanus.

Western countries fear Iran is enriching uranium to develop the capacity to build nuclear weapons and have led several rounds of international sanctions.

The EU also voiced deep concern about Tehran's nuclear work and said the Iranian stonewalling of the IAEA's inquiry into suspected atom bomb research was "unacceptable."

Joel Rosenberg: The Role Shia Eschatology Playing In Tehran's Calculus

...consider the role eschatology is playing in Tehran’s calculus. Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad and their inner circle of advisors are not being driven by normal geopolitical and economic calculus, but rather by a Shia Islamic End Times theology. They believe the End of Days is at hand. They believe their messiah known as the Twelfth Imam or the “Mahdi” is coming soon. They believe that the way to hasten the coming of the Mahdi is to annihilate Israel (which they call the “Little Satan”) and America (which they call the “Great Satan.”) I wrote about this in detail in my non-fiction book,Inside The Revolution. And I factor this thinking into my current novel series, including The Twelfth Imam, The Tehran Initiative, and Damascus Countdown to consider how it could play out in real life. Such eschatology requires Iran’s leaders to acquire nuclear weaponry and the means to deliver it in order to please Allah and their coming messiah and king. As a result, the international is unlikely to convince them to disobey their most-deeply held religious beliefs through diplomacy or sanctions. A credible military threat might work, but we’re nearly out of time. Actual military action may soon be the only option. No one wants a war. I don’t. But we don’t want to have a genocidal cult to obtain and use nuclear weapons.

Another update from Joel Rosenberg:

Significant Change In Tone: U.S. Officials Concede War WIth Iran May Be Unavoidable. Countdown To Israeli Action?

As I begin day two of the media tour for Damascus Countdown, I’m seeing a significant change in tone in the comments of senior U.S. officials — past and present – concerning Iran. Officials who have long been hesitant about the use of military force against Iran are now reluctantly suggesting it may not be possible to avoid war after all.

Listen carefully to the comments of current leaders such as Vice President Biden, Secretary Kerry, and the Commander of CENTCOM — as well as to icon of U.S. national security policy such as Henry Kissinger — and to former senior White House advisors such as Dennis Ross and Elliot Abrams, and this is what you will hear:

• The nuclear crisis with Iran is coming to a head.
• Diplomacy and sanctions have not succeeded and may have run their course.
• The Iranians are not making concessions.
• Instead, Tehran is accelerating its nuclear efforts and is dangerously close to building nuclear warheads.
• North Korea just tested a nuclear warhead with Iranian nuclear officials present, and the two countries may be working hand in glove to get Iran ready to build and deploy The Bomb.
• President Obama still does not want the U.S. to take the lead on a military operation — naming Chuck Hagel as SecDef underscored this point.
• Israel, however, believes Iran is getting dangerously close now to the very nuclear “red line” that Prime Minister Netanyahu warned of at the U.N. last fall.
• Netanyahu will soon have a new government enabling him to take action if necessary.
• Netanyahu is likely to appoint Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon as Defense Minister — Ya’alon is a former IDF chief of staff, has been intimately involved in getting Israel ready for a possible war; Ya’alon has been hesitant about force, preferring covert means, but my sense is he is becoming resolved that force may be inevitable.
• A top former Israeli military official said publicly this week that a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would a “one night operation.”
• President Obama is heading to the Middle East soon, and is signalling that Iran and Syria are his top two issues to discuss with Israeli and Arab leaders.
• The question is whether Mr. Obama still intends to pressure Israel not to strike Iran, or will give Israel the “green light.”

Obama Vs. Netanyahu

This article is copied in full below:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has just two weeks left to forge a new coalition government, but the Obama administration is working feverishly to prevent him from succeeding and force him from office, according to Middle East expert Dr. Michael Evans.

Evans is the author of numerous books about the various crises in the Middle East, including “Atomic Iran: Countdown to Armageddon” and the book he wrote with WND’s Jerome Corsi,“Showdown with Nuclear Iran.” He told WND it’s very clear why Netanyahu hasn’t put a new government together.

“The biggest stumbling block is the Big O, Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama’s got his team over there. They’ve been over there a couple weeks, and they’re meeting with the opposition leaders,” Evans said. “This is fairly existential. Obama doesn’t dislike Netanyahu. He hates him. He hates him. Netanyahu has been able to succeed against Obama. How did he do it? He went directly to the House of Representatives and got 18 standing ovations. He went to the U.S. media. But now he’s come to power weakened. Obama’s come into power strengthened.”

Evans said the argument made by Obama emissaries to Israeli lawmakers is that Netanyahu won’t last much longer in power so Israelis would be smart to go with a new leader now so as to forge a better working relationship with the U.S. Evans said that’s just a smokescreen.

“Obama’s people don’t want Netanyahu back in office. Obama’s people want a divided Jerusalem. They want a Palestinian state. They want Judea and Samaria settlements to stop, etc., etc.,” he said. “Anything they can do to weaken Netanyahu, they’re doing and they’re succeeding at it.”

While Obama’s efforts are working for the moment, Evans believes Netanyahu will cobble together a government in the coming days, but as strong of one as he would like.

“I think ultimately Bibi’s going to put his cabinet together. It won’t be strong. He wants it to have a broad coalition of maybe 75-80 out of 120 (seats in the Israeli Knesset). I don’t think he’s going to get that. I think he’s probably going to get something in the high fifties or, maximum, in the low sixties,” Evans said. “It’s possible that within a year or two, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will run again and try to defeat him.”

If Netanyahu cannot build a coalition government within the next two weeks, Israeli President Shimon Peres will invite second-place finisher Yair Lapid to forge a group that would make him the new prime minister. If he also fails, new elections would be called.

“I think it’s very likely that Netanyahu will be able to put a coalition together, but here’s the problem: Right now, to put a coalition together, he’s going to have to compromise on his core values. What he compromises to gain he will ultimately lose,” said Evans, noting that Netanyahu will feel pressured by the U.S. to make concessions toward Palestinian statehood and those concessions will mean the crumbling of the coalition.

But Netanyahu will also feel pressure to accommodate Obama on statehood because of the specter of diminished U.S. foreign aid to Israel. Evans said Obama will use the current sequestration fight and other looming fiscal debates to force Netanyahu’s hand by threatening air defense assistance and other vital programs.

“It’s an existential dilemma for the prime minister. Any direction he goes, he falls on his own sword,” Evans said.

According to Evans, Obama has already made it clear that he views Israel as the problem when it comes to the Mideast crisis.

“Obama gave his addiction speech in his first term, declaring that the greatest instability in the Middle East was al-Qaida. The second greatest was Israel,” Evans said.

When pressed to clarify when and how Obama made that contention, Evans pointed to the president’s highly touted speech in the region early in his presidency.

“It was the speech he gave in Cairo at the university in his first term that he talked about instability in the Middle East. He talked about the Palestinian crisis as the second most significant cause of instability and Israel gets blamed,” Evans said. “There isn’t any Arab regime, no thugocracy wants to solve the Palestinian crisis because to have an army you need an enemy, and Israel is perfect for the family owned corporations called countries to blame for all their problems as opposed to blaming themselves. So Israel’s got to be the tar baby.”

As for the Israeli public, Evans said most people are willing to take steps to resolve the Palestinian crisis, but there’s a limit to what they’ll approve to make nice with the Obama administration.

“They can’t support a Palestinian state that has an army, that has airspace and has treaties. An army, airspace and treaties with a Palestinian state would be an existential threat against the state of Israel and would be its downfall, because that Palestinian state could bring in Iran and other nations that hate Israel,” Evans said.

“This is a very serious crisis for the Jewish people,” he said.

Also see:

This is one of the strangest stories of our times and no one seems to be able to explain why this is happening all around the world:

Incredible Sinkholes Around The World