While the West sleeps, it dreams. It dreams of a friendship with Iran. Hand in hand, the West and the Iranians skip down the lane of concessions and appeasement on the way to a land without nuclear power. Adrift in this dreamscape, the West fails to realize the horrors that will await it when it awakes and see what has been happening while it slumbered.

America has doggedly pursued reconciliation with Iran. Remember the end of September, when President Obama made “the most shameful phone call in American history.” As Trumpet columnist Joel Hilliker wrote, “The American president was in full Neville Chamberlain mode with the most dangerous state in the Mideast.”

President Obama has apparently latched on to the notion of Iran being “moderate.” He started easing pressure on Iran the moment Hasan Rouhani was elected. Here’s the evidence: Iran has been side-stepping sanctions by using front companies to sell its oil on the black market. Before the Rouhani administration came to power, the U.S. identified and designated these companies as sanctions violators and shut them down. In the six weeks leading up to the election, the U.S. issued seven designation notices and identified more than 100 companies, staff, aircraft and ships as violators of sanctions. Since the election, the U.S. has only issued two designation notices identifying six people and four companies as sanctions violators.

Iran didn’t suddenly stop trying to make money on the black market. The change was in America’s foreign policy.

Rouhani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Now the West is trying to negotiate an end to Iran’s nuclear program with him. At the recent Geneva conference, the West promised to ease international sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy and slowed, but not stopped, Iran in its pursuit of the nuclear bomb. For this large-scale reversal, surely it would expect something big from Iran in return, right?

Wrong. Under the offer, all Iran had to do to receive sanctions relief was promise to freeze its nuclear program for up to six months to allow for more negotiating. That’s it. No destruction of enrichment facilities, no removal of already enriched uranium, no halt to construction of heavy water plants in Arak (used to produce plutonium), no tangible proof that Iran has given up its quest for the nuclear bomb. Just a promise to stop for six months.

Iran, clearly confident that concessions from the West will only grow more favorable, refused the proposal.

Meanwhile, Israel is practically screaming to the world that this deal was insane. Israel can see the real and present danger of letting Iran keep doing what it is doing. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it the “deal of the century” for Iran. He said, “What we’re having today is a situation that Iran is giving up, at best, a few days of enrichment time, but the whole international regime’s sanctions policy has the air taken out of it. That’s a big mistake, it will relieve all the pressure inside Iran, it is a historic mistake, a grievous historic error.”

He is dead on. Just take a look at what happened last time the world tried to negotiate with Hasan Rouhani.

From 1989 to 2005, Rouhani was secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and the ayatollah’s representative on the council. Among other things, this council decides the course of the country’s nuclear program and makes other military decisions. Do you recall any sweeping changes to the Iranian regime at that time? Some would argue yes, pointing to nuclear negotiations in 2003 under Rouhani.

But these negotiations don’t show an Iran ready for change: They expose Iranian negotiations for the farce they really are! Rouhani was the chief nuclear negotiator in Iran from 2003 to 2005. In 2003, he negotiated a deal with the United Nations to suspend uranium enrichment. But look what actually happened: Cloaking itself in a guise of willingness to compromise, Iran was able to advance its nuclear capability while remaining free of more sanctions.

Rouhani is aware of the success of his nuclear negotiations, and he’s proud of it. In 2006, he bragged that “by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work on Isfahan,” a nuclear enrichment facility.

Today, we again see Iran poised to receive something for nothing. It plays the West for fools and lulls the majority of the world into a false sense of security.

While negotiating goes on and on, Iran keeps racing toward the bomb. Even if it makes another agreement, Iran has proved that its word means nothing, particularly under the leadership of Hassan Rouhani.

Recognizing this reality, Israel is growing more and more desperate. Netanyahu is broadcasting his opinions on the deal wherever possible. It is an attempt to hamper the efforts of the negotiating nations in Geneva, primarily America, which is trying to ramrod its agenda of appeasement.

While France scrapped the latest offer, the failed deal was only a small victory for Israel. The negotiations are still going on. There will be counter offers and more concessions for Iran if need be.

Netanyahu, speaking before the UN General Assembly, said, “Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, even if we have to stand alone.”

As it looks today, Israel will have to stand alone. By dealing with Iran as it has been, the international community is abandoning Israel to its fate. Israel must be very uneasy, watching as Iran gets closer and closer to the nuclear bomb.

Just how far can the tensions rise? How long before Iran goes nuclear? While specific times are uncertain, concessions to Iran are definitely leading to the fulfillment of some violent, earthshaking prophecies!

One of these prophecies is the aggressive rise of a power called the king of the south. Trumpet readers know we have warned of the rise of Iran as this king since the early 1990s. This fierce king, outlined in Daniel 11:40, is Iran. A number of nations in the Middle East and North Africa including Egypt and Lybia will ally with it. (For more information, read The King of the South by Gerald Flurry.)

Daniel said this power would “push” at the king of the north—a German-led European alliance (this is proved in our booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire). That push would be a lot stronger if Iran were armed with nuclear weapons!

Notice what happens next: “And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over” (Daniel 11:40).

This is the second dramatic prophecy we can see starting to be fulfilled today! Germany is one of the nations currently negotiating with Iran. But notice what Gerald Flurry wrote on the German assault on radical Islam in his article titled “The Whirlwind Prophecy”: “[A]s the Iranians push their own agenda—growing more and more confident by other nations’ weakness and inaction—they will suddenly be blindsided by a whirlwind attack that will wipe them out!”

That is what we see now. Germany is negotiating, but a rapid change in behavior is going to catch Iran and the rest of the world off guard. Iran, wittingly or unwittingly, is lighting the fuse to World War iii! That is the plain truth of the Bible.

Instead of promoting peace, the most recent negotiations with Iran are heightening the chances of war. America and the West’s dreams of peace with Iran will turn into a nightmare.

For more information on the coming conflict between the king of the north and the king of the south, read “The Whirlwind Prophecy” by Gerald Flurry.