Is war about to break out in the Middle East—or peace?

The correct answer is both.

The dogs of war are certainly baying. Israel is practicing for what looks like a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran is snarling and firing off missiles. The terrorists of Hamas continue raining rockets on Israel, and those in Hezbollah just cemented control of the Lebanese government.

Meanwhile, the doves of peace are fluttering. There is talk of Israel and Syria inching toward a landmark peace deal. The United States and Iran both say they want to make nice with each other. Officials are downplaying the idea of an Iranian nuclear threat and discussing how Hezbollah might be effectively neutered.

Many observers are squinting through the blizzard of rumors and reports and concluding that we might—just possibly, maybe, perhaps—be on the cusp of a revolutionary turn for the better in this blood-soaked land.

The good news is they’re partially right. But it won’t come from any of the feeble peace initiatives currently being crafted. Anyone who predicts otherwise is ignoring several tough realities of the morass that is the Middle East.

Look first at the moves toward “peace” being taken by Israel and Syria. In May, the two countries announced they had begun indirect talks through Turkish mediation. A potential deal revolves around Israel giving up the Golan Heights in exchange for security guarantees from Syria, including a pledge to bring Hezbollah to heel. Some analysts believe Syria has both the will and the power to reign in the Shiite terrorist group, and that a peace agreement could be huge. “A deal with Syria would make Israel the most secure it has been in millennia,” Stratfor’s Peter Zeihan effusively wrote.

There are major holes in this assessment. It is always dangerous to trust the sincerity of any overtures of peace from a committed state sponsor of terrorism.

Syria has just spent the last three years helping to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon. It has facilitated the assassinations of a prime minister and several parliamentarians opposed to Syrian interference in Lebanese politics. Syria is a significant reason that Hezbollah just last week finally got the veto power in the new government it has long sought. And it was only after the new Hezbollah-controlled government was unveiled that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad announced his nation would, for the first time, open an embassy in Beirut.

As Caroline Glick commented in Monday’s Jerusalem Post, “Syria’s announcement was not a sign of moderation by Damascus but a sign of radicalization. Syria has not accepted Lebanon’s sovereignty. It has accepted Iranian dominion over Lebanon. And in accepting Iran’s control of Lebanon, Assad effectively acknowledged that today Syria is nothing more than Iran’s Arab vassal state.”

But besides the dubiousness of a potential contract between Israel and Syria is the assumption that it would actually muzzle Hezbollah. How determined would Syria really be to fight Hezbollah in the face of an Iran determined not to lose what it has gained in Lebanon? There may be some fracturing in the friendship between Syria and Iran, but the two are not about to go to war with one another.

The cold truth is, through Hezbollah, Iran has just conquered Lebanon. In the end, what Syria does won’t change that. Even if a Syrian-Israeli peace agreement was inked, it would do nothing of substance to eliminate the threat from Iran and its terrorist proxies.

On top of that, the notion that Israel is approaching greater security than it has had in millennia is based on the assumption that Israel’s security depends primarily on the goodwill of its neighbors. The reality is that in this neighborhood, even if Israel signed peace pacts with every government within 1,000 miles and they miraculously all honored them, independent terrorist groups would still blow themselves up to kill Jews. Sadly, Israel’s security depends on its own strength of will. And that is shrinking.

But what about Iran’s strength of will? Some observers are seizing on indications that Iran wants to cut a deal with Washington over Iraq. Among other statements from Iranian officials that made Western diplomats swoon, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he would accept a U.S. diplomatic presence in his country. In a July 10 analysis, Stratfor wrote that even Iran’s recent missile tests—which reportedly demonstrated the nation’s ability to reach Israel—were a positive sign of this imminent deal. Just Iran getting one last shot in to strengthen its position at the negotiating table.

Try to understand the logic. Tehran can sense itself growing isolated, analysts say. After all, its bosom buddy Syria is turning its back. Making matters “worse,” the White House insists on dealing with Iran diplomatically, and it convinced Israel to stop threatening an attack. One commentator says that by doing so, “the Bush administration has stopped playing into Ahmadinejad’s political need for conflict and tension.” Yes, all of this niceness is apparently weakening Iran’s position considerably. Thus Iran, sensing a window of opportunity closing, and eager to have influence in Iraq after America leaves, is—in its heart of hearts—ready to dismantle Hezbollah, mothball its nuclear activities and abandon its goal to obliterate Israel.

Nonsense.

Let’s deal in realities.

Two years ago, Iran unleashed Hezbollah to launch a war against Israel. It succeeded—beyond what any enemy of Israel has managed since the Jewish state’s birth in 1948.

Last year, Iran unleashed Hamas to take over the Gaza Strip. Gaza is now a terrorist state.

This year, Iran again unleashed Hezbollah and successfully subjugated the government of Lebanon.

Even if Western analysts can evaluate this sequence of events and see a weakened Iran, you can be sure that isn’t how the mullahs see it. They see victories, plain and simple. Viewing these developments through the lens of their Islamist ideology, they see Iran sitting on the cusp of defeating Israel and the West and bringing about a new golden age of Islam.

Of course, the West’s continuous backpedaling provides plenty of evidence to support their belief. Earlier this month, after years of unsuccessful Western efforts to coerce Iran into giving up its nuclear program, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany gave Iran a plum offer. “It promised civilian nuclear power plants, economic assistance, new airplanes, agricultural assistance, high-tech transfers and a freeze on the expansion of economic sanctions against the nuclear-weapons-seeking mullocracy,” Glick wrote. “In exchange for all of that, the Iranians weren’t even required to end their uranium enrichment activities. To get the ball of concessions rolling, all the Iranians needed to do was promise not to expand their current enrichment activities” (emphasis mine). In other words, the current level of enrichment—which it is believed would be enough to produce a nuclear weapon by next year—is, according to the U.S. and five other leading nations, just fine.

Iran, predictably, refused the offer. Ahmadinejad insists he will never make a deal that puts restrictions on his nation’s uranium enrichment.

But don’t expect that refusal to convince the international community to get any tougher. Wouldn’t want to play into Ahmadinejad’s political need for conflict and tension.

By committing itself to such reasoning, however, the West has made itself eminently subject to manipulation. Just a few conciliatory-sounding words from an Iranian official—We are prepared, in principle, to consider a reasonable request if made officially—is enough to inspire optimism in Western officials. Thus, if Iranian leaders decided, say, that they wanted to quiet things down for a while—until after a certain presidential election this November, for example—no problem at all. And meanwhile, they can continue laying the groundwork for realizing their ambitions—in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Israel, in nuclear technology. Then, at a moment of their choosing, they can start pushing again.

Are these really trends that portend peace breaking out in the Middle East?

As a matter of fact, they are.

Violent fanaticism has a historical record of success. Thankfully, however, this success is destined to be short-lived. The facts of history, a clear-eyed look at Iran today, and biblical prophecy all point toward immediate victories that will soon end in catastrophic defeat for this nation.

The Trumpet often points to the pivotal end-time prophecy of Daniel 11 revealing the soon-coming war between “the king of the south,” a radical Islamist power led by Iran, and “the king of the north,” a European superpower led by Germany. It is worth picking up a couple of important details from this prophecy.

“And at the time of the end shall the king of the southpush at him,” begins Daniel 11:40 (emphasis ours). That push describes the foreign policy—plainly evident today—of the Iran-led power: It is a pushy, provocative policy that dares other nations to retaliate.

There will come a point when this policy will backfire, with catastrophic results. Verse 40 continues, “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.” The European power will launch a blitzkrieg attack that will utterly overwhelm its enemy and grind it into the Middle Eastern sand.

Yes, all of the current efforts to formalize peace in the Middle East are prophesied to culminate in a spectacular war. Read about this in our booklet The King of the South.

However, that is not the end of the story. Though the demise of the delusional zealotry of Iran will introduce a brutal period of world domination by that European superpower, even that empire will meet its demise after only a few years.

All of these events presage the imminent fulfillment of another prophecy—the introduction of the Messiah to this Earth! He will force the nations to beat their swords into plowshares and will establish a Kingdom that will never be destroyed.

In the end, true, lasting peace is about to break out in the Middle East—and the world!