But before I share that report, let me provide the context.
I have talked extensively about Iran and Hezbollah’s threats to strike Israel over the past month. It hasn’t materialized, at least on the Iranian end. Hezbollah intended to strike Israel late last month, but were headed off at the pass, so to speak, when Israel struck preemptively, embarrassing and weakening the terror group.
The Iranian regime has been breathing threats of an unprecedented devastating response that still hasn’t come. Why?
On April 13, Israel was bombarded by 300+ projectiles fired for the first time from Iranian soil. You know the story by now. Over 99% of those incoming Iranian missiles and drones were intercepted in a miraculous display of missile defense—and I do mean miraculous. What are the odds that 99% would be intercepted? But they were.
A few days later, Israel responded to that barrage. I’ve maintained that it just wasn’t enough to truly deter Iran and discourage the regime from trying again. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation over the past month about a looming Iranian strike against Israel if they had reacted more forcefully to April 13. I still believe that. And yet, some new wrinkles have just been added to the equation.
According to an article published in the Jerusalem Post, “Israel’s April strike on Iran’s S-300 missile system deterred Iran and Hezbollah from launching large-scale attacks in August.”
The article reports:
The IDF’s strike on Iran’s S-300 antiaircraft missile system on April 19 as retaliation for Tehran’s launching over 300 aerial threats against Israel days on April 13-14 significantly deterred the Islamic Republic and Hezbollah throughout August, top sources have told The Jerusalem Post.
To date, Iran has not retaliated in any dramatic military way directly against Israel for the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh on July 31 while he was in Tehran, which it attributed to Jerusalem.
Ismail Haniyeh was killed right under the noses of the Iranian regime. Iran has blamed Israel and has vowed to retaliate. Yet, according to the Jerusalem Post, “Sources are confident that Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei felt that the strike on the S-300 was a significant loss and that he and his armed forces were further disturbed by being unsure of how the Jewish state had pulled it off.”
Before I continue, let’s back it up real quick. Israel carried out this strike on April 19, a few days after Iran’s barrage. What did we know up until this new report? Israel struck back through a single airstrike on a “sensitive military site” inside Natanz, Iran, home to a major Iranian nuclear installation, which is part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The message, at the time we were told, was that by doing this in Natanz near that sensitive nuclear site, Israel was telling Iran, “We can hit you any time and any place.”
There was no mention of the target being the s300 missile defense system. Five months later, what’s the big deal? Why is this new information so important? The s300 is an antiaircraft missile defense system that is Russian-made. Russia supplied the s300 to Iran. It is a big deal that the Russian Bear has now been introduced into this conversation.
The Jerusalem Post stated that Khamenei was “disturbed.”
The significance of the strike of the S-300 was not only that it took Tehran a decade to get Russia to sell the system, or that it was a huge jump in antiaircraft capabilities, but also that the system was located in close proximity both to Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility and a key military airport.
According to sources, Khamenei understood loud and clear that Israel could have easily destroyed those other mega-important strategic sites.
That is part, it seems, of the internal debate going on inside Iran right now. The Iranian regime is divided. Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, was taken out in a guest house in Tehran on July 31 – August 1 overnight. He was there attending the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Israel took him out in a stunning and daring strike. To say the Iranian regime had egg on its face is an understatement.
And it’s not the first time! Think of November 2020, when Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the father of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, was eliminated. Think about the constant targeting and sabotage against Iranian nuclear installations and ballistic missile factories. Think about the Iranian nuclear scientists who’ve been killed. All of this was on Iranian soil.
This strike on Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas in Iran, was an even more devastating embarrassment for the regime, and it came less than 24 hours after Israel also eliminated the top military commander for Hezbollah, Fuad Shukr, in Beirut in another stunning attack.
Iran comes out of the gate after Haniyeh was killed, vowing and breathing threats of “unprecedented revenge against the Zionist entity” like they have “never done before.” However, if what we are hearing from the Jerusalem Post report is accurate, and I believe it is, the Iranians may have been forced to slow their roll.
I’m not saying Iran’s not going to do anything. I think Iran has backed itself into a corner to the point where it has to do something—and that’s the debate now. The regime is facing major internal disputes among its president, supreme leader, the IRGC, Iranian terror proxies, and others regarding their next move and its severity. It is a power struggle.
Here’s the prophetic kicker: Again, the s300 system is Russian-made and Russia-supplied. While it took forever for this to arrive in Iran, it speaks more largely to a prophetic, in all the wrong ways, alliance that we are seeing shaping up.
This is a full-blown military and defense alliance where the Iranian regime is supplying Russia with drones—to the point that they’re actually building a drone factory a few hundred miles east of Moscow. Iran fancies itself as a drone superpower, and Russia is gleaning that drone know-how from Iran, and they are using drones to great effect on the battlefields in Ukraine. Iran is also reportedly supplying Russia with ballistic missiles.
This is not Iran acting out of the goodness of their heart; this is a quid pro quo relationship. Did Russia give the s300 as part of the package in return?
Russia and Iran have stood together in the diplomatic sphere, at the UN and elsewhere. Iran has also been pushing Russia for years in Syria because, remember, thousands of Russian troops remain in that country. This is an increasingly deep relationship.
What does this mean for Israel?
Firstly, you have to think that Russia is not happy that Israel struck the s300. Even though they gave it to Iran, it was still made in Russia. Russia was very proud of this system. Secondly, if Russia is so closely aligned with the Iranian axis, there’s no way Israel can have even cordial relations with Vladimir Putin. The Russian regime is openly, proudly, and unapologetically aligned with Israel’s greatest enemy in the world—a regime that has sworn to Israel’s destruction. Not to mention also North Korea and communist China.
It’s worth noting that Vladimir’s friends—Iran, China, and North Korea—arguably are the world’s three worst persecutors of Christianity. That is who he chooses to cast his lot with.
The Israel-Russia relationship will not be rebuilt as long as Russia is full-on embracing Iran.
What does this mean prophetically?
The war of Gog and Magog is laid out in the Book of Ezekiel, chapters 38-39. It’s eerie to see the chess pieces moving. Russia, Iran, and Turkey have never been closer. Traditionally and historically, over the centuries, these three nations have been at loggerheads at each other’s throats. Now Russia, Turkey, and Iran are cleaving closer together.
The prophet Ezekiel lays out a day when a hook will be put in the Russian Leader’s jaw. He, along with what Ezekiel calls a latter-day confederation, will come against Israel. They won’t get very far. They meet their demise on the mountains of Israel. But we can see this confederation shaping up and playing out right now—and lining up clearly.
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