When Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi led Iran, he was a strong ally of America. President Jimmy Carter virtually pushed the “corrupt” shah of Iran out of power in the late 1970s. America’s liberal press and politicians, like President Carter, thought he was too undemocratic, so they helped to drive him from power. As he was falling, America gave him little or no support.

After overthrowing the shah in 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established Iran as the world’s number-one state sponsor of terrorism. Shortly after the ayatollah came to power, he held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. It was an extremely agonizing time for Americans. The ayatollah did this because he knew President Carter didn’t have the will to confront Iran, which was pathetically weak compared to the United States.

President Carter made a feeble attempt to free the hostages, but it failed miserably. The botched rescue attempt was symbolic of the entire Carter foreign policy. It was perhaps the worst four-year period ever for American foreign policy. The U.S. hostage crisis had a great deal to do with President Carter losing the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan. Mr. Carter and the U.S. had been humiliated by the Iran hostage crisis and other foreign-policy disasters. The voters reacted by kicking Mr. Carter out of office.

Did we learn any lessons from that wretched history? Certainly not for long. Today, Mr. Carter’s foreign policy is back.

When Khomeini died 10 years after the Islamic Revolution, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani intensified Iran’s international network of terrorism. It was only then that some observers began to see what a terrible mistake President Carter had made in assisting the shah’s downfall.

Back in 1994, then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher called Iran “the world’s most significant state sponsor of terrorism.” How pathetic to make such a statement back then and do nothing about it! Just how much of a superpower is America? America has known for years who “the world’s most significant state sponsor of terrorism” is. But it lacks the will to deal with Iran—to hold Iran accountable for its terrorist acts of war!

In the 1990s, state-sponsored terrorism became deeply entrenched in Iran, and America’s leaders did almost nothing to combat it. And the U.S. “superpower” allows Iran to continue sponsoring violent terrorism to this day!

More than any other nation (apart from Iran itself), America (led by President Carter) was responsible for the overthrow of the shah and the ushering in of Ayatollah Khomeini. President Carter led the charge. That weakness could prove to be the biggest foreign-policy disaster in modern times!

How did it all happen?

History Repeating Itself

We must understand how this relates to the present situation in Iraq. General David Petraeus is commanding U.S. forces in Iraq. He has said that Iran is fighting a war by proxy in Iraq. The Iranians direct a powerful arm of their military in Iraq. This is why America can never win in Iraq. We are afraid, once again, to confront Iran.

We have adopted the Carter method of foreign policy and cannot win, and that in spite of what General Petraeus is telling our political leaders.

Look at the present situation in the little nation of Israel. Here again, we find President Carter and his foreign policy in the spotlight.

When World War ii ended, there were many Jewish refugees with no place to call home. Most of the world became sympathetic to these Jews.

After a bitter struggle in the United Nations, the land of Israel was declared a nation. In 1948, when Israel (biblical Judah—the name Jew is just a shortened version of Judah) was declared a nation, the Arabs attacked immediately. The Jews had no real army. They were losing the war after three weeks. Then the Arabs strangely agreed to a temporary UN-sponsored truce. This is exactly what Israel needed to re-arm and train its weary troops—many of them civilians who carried guns. Shortly thereafter the Arabs started fighting again. This time the Jews were well prepared and soon won the war.

It was a miracle from God. Most Jews acknowledged that. They experienced many miracles in the following years.

The Jews were prophesied to have a nation in this end time. So it had to happen. That too was a miracle.

The Jews were determined fighters. This was their first sovereign nation in 2,000 years. Only death could make them surrender their new and only homeland.

There continued to be many problems between Jews and Arabs. The problems became so intense in 1967 that almost every nation in the world believed the Arabs were about to attack Israel again.

The Soviet Union was strongly urging Egypt to attack. Egyptian troops poured into the Sinai and ordered the UN forces out. War was imminent. Egypt, Jordan and Syria were allied to start a war. So the Jews felt compelled to strike first. Jewish war planes flew into Egypt and destroyed 300 Egyptian combat fighters in three hours. The Jews then captured all of the Sinai, the Suez Canal, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights in just six days.

Again, a series of miracles by God saved the Jewish nation.

Tourists poured into Israel. The state became prosperous—and complacent. The Jews were lulled into a false sense of security.

In late 1973, the Jewish military ignored serious intelligence reports that the Arabs were again going to attack. The attack occurred on October 6—during the solemn Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. The Jews won the war in three weeks, with much aid from the Americans. Egypt was beaten, but not humiliated. Once again biblical Judah had been miraculously saved.

Carter Gets Involved

Soon after, something dramatic changed in Israel. Menachem Begin was elected prime minister in 1977. President Carter persuaded him to give the Sinai back to Egypt in the late 1970s. This is when the miracles began to fade! And there is President Carter, once again working his destructive magic! This was the beginning of the Israeli-Arab peace process. The Jews gave up land for a piece of paper. This was also the beginning of the Jews’ downward slide—a slide that will end in oblivion unless they wake up!

When the Jews gave the Sinai back to Egypt, that probably included Mount Sinai, where God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses. This fiery mountain spectacle gave birth to the nation of Israel! The Sinai area was where the children of Israel wandered for 40 years as they rebelled against God’s law.

Again, the biblical name for the modern nation called Israel is Judah. But the modern descendants of the ancient Israelites include many nations—primarily the U.S. (biblical Manasseh) and Britain (biblical Ephraim). In other words, biblical Judah is only a small part of Israel today. America and the British peoples are also Israel. The prophecies about end-time Israel are primarily focused on those three nations. (For proof, read our free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.)

The United States and Britain were both instrumental in pressuring Judah to give the Sinai back to Egypt, even though our ancestry was also a part of Israel when God’s law was given on Mount Sinai. Why are these three nations in such serious trouble today? Giving the Sinai back to Egypt is at the heart of their problems! Those three nations are looking to men for peace and not to the great God of Mount Sinai. Their history with God is virtually meaningless!

The Jewish nation was born and sustained by godly miracles. But it still refuses to trust God!

Today, in spite of the fact that the Jews gave the Sinai back to Egypt—an unparalleled gift—Egypt is fast becoming one of Israel’s most hostile neighbors. That should give us some idea of how giving land away does not buy peace.

Nevertheless, Israel has taken on the same mentality of weakness and trusting in men in its dealings with the Palestinians living in Israel. The Jews continue to give land for empty promises of peace. It started in 1993 on the White House lawn with a handshake between the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. There Israel surrendered bits of that hard-won, strategically important land in hope that the Arabs could be simply bargained into giving up their goal of destroying Israel.

The Jews have also given Gaza, Jericho, Bethlehem and other West Bank areas back to the Palestinians. It seems the world has forgotten that those areas were won in a war where the Arabs were trying to annihilate the Jews. This land-for-peace process is almost unheard of in history, except perhaps what happened in South Africa.

The Jews have given back many biblical sites to the Arabs. America and Britain have strongly urged them to do so. We fail to realize that such a lack of faith is why all the adults of ancient Israel had to die in the Sinai wilderness.

Throughout this terribly misnamed “peace” process—Israel giving up land and seeing no appreciable drop in violence—Palestinian leaders have consistently told politicians and media that they want peaceful coexistence with Israel while simultaneously promising to their own people that they will destroy Israel.

Now, after years of gambling with its own soil, Israel finds itself depleted of property and will, sapped and bloodied by a policy that has publicized, for all to see, the fatal weariness of this tiny nation.

The delusion of President Carter was that Middle East peace can be achieved by negotiation. The whole Middle East peace process is a deadly delusion. Why? Because we are negotiating with people who want to wipe Israel off the map. These people don’t want peace—they want to rule the Middle East.

We have already gone far beyond the time for negotiation. President Carter showed us how that policy fails. For more information about the Middle East in Bible prophecy, read our free booklets The King of the South and Jerusalem in Prophecy.