Iran’s Terrifying Drive Toward Delivering a Nuclear Weapon

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Israel is justifiably terrified that Iran will soon have a functional nuclear weapons program and is actively working to stop it on multiple fronts.

It’s important to understand that a military nuclear program is based on three fundamental components.

• Fissionable material: This is the highly enriched uranium or plutonium, which is the substance that makes nuclear bomb itself.
• An explosive device: This is the initial explosion that sparks the larger nuclear bomb, similar to a spark plug starting an engine.
• A delivery system: This is the method to send the bomb to its target.

Iran has been working on those first two components clandestinely, but its work on the delivery system is out in the open.

Here are three recent events that reveal how serious Iran is about targeting Israel with a nuclear weapon and what Israel is trying to do to stop it.

1) Iran Test-fires Another Ballistic Missile

Last Wednesday, Iran test-fired its Shahab 3 ballistic missile, which flew 683 miles and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead on its nose.

Ballistic missiles, which actually fly out of the Earth’s atmosphere and into space, are so expensive that they are almost solely developed to carry a nuclear or chemical payload.

Iran has one of the world’s largest arsenals of ballistic missiles and has been honing its ability to hit its targets over huge distances.

Aware of this, Israel has been working on a defensive system to counter the ballistic missile threat.

2) Israel Successfully Tests the Arrow 3 Defensive Missile System

At Sunday’s Israeli cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed footage of a successful test of the Arrow 3 system. The test took place over the preceding weeks in Alaska and was produced alongside the United States.

The Arrow 3 system is Israel’s main defense against Iranian ballistic missiles. It is similar to the Iron Dome system, except the interception of the missile takes place in space rather than inside Earth’s atmosphere.

With a ballistic missile, the projectile rises until it exits the atmosphere and then flies in an arched orbit before it reenters the atmosphere to approach its target. The warhead breaks off before detonation.

The Arrow 3 has the ability to recognize an incoming ballistic missile, fire its own ballistic missile out of Earth’s atmosphere, and hit the incoming missile while in space. Thus neutralizing the threat.

The tests that took place over Alaska showed three successful interceptions, which highlight the mindboggling level of sophistication of the Arrow 3. In Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Mr. Netanyahu said, “I would like to make it clear here that metal hit metal; it was not just a proximity detonation. The missile hit the missile all three times. This is a great achievement.”

With the Arrow 3, Israel is trying to provide a protective umbrella should a ballistic missile be fired. But Israel is also going after Iran’s missile stockpiles on the ground.

3) Israel Now Targeting Iranian Missiles in Iraq

For years, Iran has been actively transporting missiles of different sizes to Lebanon and Syria to be used against Israel. Israel has conducted almost 1,000 strikes in Syria over the past few years to prevent these missiles from reaching Iranian proxies in those countries.

However, it wasn’t until recently that Israel began targeting Iranian weapons depots in Iraq.

On two different occasions last month, Israeli F-35 fighter jets struck Iranian missile depots north of Baghdad.

The first attack, on July 19, occurred on a warehouse about 110 miles north of Baghdad. The Israeli Air Force targeted the Shiite militia base just after a shipment of Iranian-made short- and medium-range ballistic missiles was offloaded from a truck, which was supposedly transporting refrigerated food.

The second strike, on July 28, was aimed at Camp Ashraf, another suspected Iranian missile depot 25 miles northeast of Baghdad and 50 miles from the Iranian border.

The significance of these attacks should not go unnoticed.

They are likely Israel’s first air strikes in Iraq since Operation Opera in 1981, when it bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor.

They show that Israel is unwilling to allow Iran to use Iraq as a forward operating base to launch ballistic missiles at it.

It also shows how powerful Iran has become in Iraq. This Iranian takeover of Iraq is something we have prophesied of for almost 30 years. Iran is using Iraq as a potential launching pad for its ballistic missiles against Israel.

Put together, Iran’s ballistic missile test, the Arrow 3 defensive tests and Israel’s bold strikes into the heart of Iraq show how close we are moving toward a confrontation with Iran.

Iran is vehemently seeking the destruction of Israel, and it sees its control of Iraq and its ballistic missile program as crucial steps toward its goal.

So many commentators, especially in the West, cast Iran as a rational actor that is just trying to defend itself in the region. But its ongoing quest for ballistic missiles and the lengths to which Israel has to defend itself are proof against that notion. In reality, Iran is moving forward with a deliberate strategy to confront and conquer Israel.

Iran is not defensive, but offensive. It doesn’t need to be provoked to act. Iran initiates conflict all by itself.

And that’s precisely how the Bible describes the end-time nation of Iran.

For almost three decades, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has shown that Iran fulfills the role of the prophesied “king of the south” spoken of in the book of Daniel. This is a king that leads a radical Islamic kingdom and initiates conflict, not just against Israel, but against Europe as well.

Daniel 11:40 states, “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.”

As characterized in that verse, the foreign policy of the king of the south is pushy. It would be a challenge to find a nation with a pushier foreign policy than Iran.

Iran’s continued testing of ballistic missiles and its movement of those missiles into Iraq show that Iran is positioning itself to make this prophesied push.

Its actions are a sign of where we are in the timeline of biblically prophesied events. It’s essential that you understand those upcoming events, so you can know how to prepare for them.

These aren’t normal times in which we live, and Iran’s actions prove it. For more understanding of how Iran is pushing the world toward this prophesied war, read The King of the South.