2007 – A Year of Decision in the Middle East that will affect the World – PART 1
‘D-DAY MIGHT NOT BE TOO FAR AWAY’
January 8, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
This will be the first of a series of BLOGS on the year 2007 as a Year of Decision for Israel
on the Iranian Nuclear Threat. The major question of the series is simply “What is Israel going to do about it?” How Israel handles this problem, has, is, and will continue to, cause the world to hold its breath.
As you know by now, my guesstimate for the time of an attack against Israel will occur on some day during the time period 2008 to 2012.
I suspect the events of 2007 may well determine how early or late it will occur in this time frame.
Quite frankly, when I first learned of the potential Iranian nuclear threat in the early nineties, there was little doubt in my mind that Israel would launch an air strike against their facilities while they were in the infant stage and, when our Web Site was in its infancy, I wrote BLOGS to that effect, believing it was just a matter of time until they launched air strikes. But two allied force operations against Saddam’s Iraq kept Israel under America’s thumb, because we did not want them to get involved in attacks against Islamic Middle East nations, fearing it would complicate the situation, which it would have done.
Operation Desert Storm – On August 8, 1990, Iraq annexed Kuwait, and the next day the UN declared the annexation invalid. On August 25 military interdiction was authorized by the UN. From that day forward the U.S. began to seek nations to join them in a coalition to invade Iraq. For this reason Israel was asked to stay out of it, because many nations would not even consider joining if Israel was involved.
Operation Iraqi Freedom began on May 20, 2003 and is still continuing. And the U.S. has not, and does not, want Israel involved in it.
Because of these two operations, the situations that existed between them, and its own internal terrorist and political problems, the Israelis did not launch air strikes against Iran during the infancy of its nuclear program.
Now it faces a completely different ball game! Iran has its most important nuclear components deep under ground, scattered across the regions of its vast territory, and has imported high tech Russian anti-aircraft missiles to use against attacking aircraft. Israel now faces the possibility of only a partial success, which would leave the Iranians with bragging rights, to claim Israel is no longer in the Middle East driver’s seat. If Israeli aircraft were downed, their wreckage would be placed on stands and paraded around Iran on television as a symbol of their victory, as would be the remains of the pilots. The savagery of Islamic fanaticism cannot be exaggerated.
Yaakov Katz, an excellent journalist, has an outstanding analysis of the pros and cons Israel faces in “to launch or not to launch,” from which I will draw in this and future BLOGS. It appears in the Jerusalem Post, and is titled “Decision Time.”
Decision Time
BY YAAKOV KATZ, THE JERUSALEM POST
January 4, 2007
It was exactly a year ago. A small Falcon jet – favored by top Iranian military officers – crashed in northwest Iran near the Turkish border.
Among those killed were Brig.-Gen. Ahmad Kazemi, commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard ground forces division, and at least 12 other officers.
Rumors quickly spread that the plane had been sabotaged and that Kazemi had been killed in a devious Israeli plot.
While Iranian official statements blamed bad weather and dilapidated engines for the crash, there was room for speculation that foul play may have had a hand. Kazemi had been responsible for the production and development of Iran’s Shihab ballistic missile series, capable of delivering a nuclear warhead into the heart of Europe, not to mention Israel.
He was also a close confidant of Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Muhammad Najjar, from their days together in the Revolutionary Guard, where Najjar served as the head of the Middle East department, responsible for Israel and Lebanon.
Since last January’s crash, air travel for Iranian military officials has become increasingly dangerous. On November 27, a military transport plane crashed just after take-off from Teheran.
More than 40 people were killed including 30 members of the Revolutionary Guard, some of them reported to be close advisers to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A week before, a helicopter crashed into the central town of Najafabad, killing six, including a senior Revolutionary Guard officer.
The combined effect of these crashes, some Iranian analysts claim, has effectively gutted the high command
of the Revolutionary Guard. But whatever the truth concerning the cause of these mysterious crashes, they show that numerous stumbling blocks confront Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching Israel.
International pressure – in the form of UN-approved sanctions such as those imposed last month – as well as internal strife and recent technological challenges all serve as obstacles the Islamic Republic has had to face throughout its 20-year effort to obtain nuclear weapons.
Within the Israeli leadership, there is one clear voice – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – that refuses to come to terms with a nuclear Iran and claims that Teheran must be stopped, even at a heavy price, from obtaining weapons of mass destruction and rocking the balance of power in the Middle East.
Currently nine countries are known to have or are suspected of having nuclear weapons: the US, France, the UK, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. Adding Iran to the mix will not only constitute an existential threat to Israel, but will also impair its operational independence.
“What if a soldier is kidnapped in Lebanon and we want to go to war?” asks one senior official. “All Iran would need to do is wave its nuke at us and make us reconsider.”
Israel currently has invested most of its intelligence-gathering resources into the Iranian issue. The Mossad holds the “Iran File” and the Foreign Ministry is spearheading diplomatic efforts.
There are additional, top-secret committees, whose members are appointed by the prime minister and include senior officials from the intelligence community and former politicians with a strategic background. These committees, one participant says, meet from time to time and are responsible for amalgamating all of the details gathered by the different security branches and brainstorming on strategy.
At the end of the day, however, as one former IAF commander involved in the successful strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 points out, it is solely up to the prime minister to decide what course of action Israel will take – military or diplomacy.
The way things look now, D-Day might not be too far away.
End Jerusalem Post Article
Wake up world! The only victor in the coming final war of this age of the Gentiles is going to be the Messiah of both Jew and Gentile. I hope your relationship with him is based on the Apostle Paul’s testimony.
Acts 20:20,21 – And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house, [21] Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Isaiah 7:14 – Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Isaiah 26:18-21 – We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. [19] Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.
Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. [20] Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. [21] For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.
Luke 21:25-27 – And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; [26] Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. [27] And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
Zechariah 14:8,9 – And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. [9] And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one.
Isaiah 9:6,7 – For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. [7] Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
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