Consensus is that the Gaza war was a win for Iran. Israel again exposed its unwillingness to fight to victory; Hamas is intact and being lionized throughout the Muslim world. Iran’s advance in the region continues unabated, as does its nuclear program. Many are deeply concerned: Iran is stronger than ever.

What will the new American president do about it? Within a day of President Obama’s inauguration, the White House website announced that he intends to engage in “tough and direct diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.” “Now is the time to use the power of American diplomacy,” the statement says. If Iran doesn’t give up its nuclear program and support for terrorism in exchange for economic and political incentives, it warns, “we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation.” Pursuing such a strategy, it says, “is our best way to make progress.”

Now is the time for this? For over five years, virtually this same strategy has failed. Economic and political incentives and penalties get nowhere with Iran: The mullahs simply will not put mammon above their religious devotion to nuclear weapons, terrorism and Israel’s demise. And time is running out: A recent report by the French parliament says Iran will cross the nuclear threshold this year.

As the U.S. kicks this can down the road, signs show another power is looking to confront the problem more forcefully—right now.

This power is looking to deploy its navy to the Gaza coast to ensure Iranian weapons stay out. It is offering help to shut down the tunnels through which Iran has supplied Hamas. It is squeezing off trade with Iran and pushing for steeper sanctions. It is increasing arms sales to Iran’s Arab enemies.

Who is it? Regular Trumpet readers and students of biblical prophecy will be deeply interested to know that it is Germany.

The fact that prophecy describes a spectacular clash between a German-led military force and an Iranian-led coalition exposes the true significance of these initiatives. Germany is waking up to the Iranian threat and preparing for battle.

The Gaza war noticeably accelerated this trend. The reason is that it opened an enormous opportunity for Iran that Germany would very much like to crush. With Gaza in ruins, Iran looks to secure its gains there by leading the reconstruction.

Germany doesn’t have to look very far back in history to see just what a disaster that could bring. The same scenario played out after the Second Lebanon War just three summers ago. Germany’s Center for Applied Policy Research analyzed the situation thusly: “[I]t seems evident that there was but one winner of the military confrontation between Israel and the Hezbollah, the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Immediately after a ceasefire halted Israel’s assault on Hezbollah, Iran rushed in to rebuild. It quickly gained the sympathies of many Lebanese, restored Hezbollah’s military capabilities, and, within a year, was able to unleash Hezbollah to besiege the government and consolidate its power over Lebanese politics. It was an impressive coup for Tehran.

Germany doesn’t want to see a repeat scenario in Gaza. And because Iran is already moving in quickly, Berlin knows it too must act in haste. “[B]ecause of the struggle with Iran over hegemony, the German government is very attentive to questions of reconstruction,” wrote German-foreign-policy.com. Germany is enacting a five-point plan that includes boosting humanitarian aid and reconstruction efforts. “According to these guidelines, Berlin and Brussels would not only be furnishing emergency aid, but also organizing a reconstruction conference around the elimination of the war damage [so as not to] leave the benefits in prestige to Tehran” (emphasis mine throughout).

This is a very canny approach. By marketing its interest in the region as a desire to check Iran, Germany can easily pitch itself as a friend of the Jews. This is a tailor-made opportunity to gain Israel’s trust and to burnish its own credentials as a mediator for peace. At the same time, Germany earns points in the anti-Iran Arab camp, which includes the governments of Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

From a prophetic perspective, Berlin’s blossoming relationships with all of these nations are worth keenly watching: with the Jews because of a prophesied betrayal by Germany, and with Arab states because of a prophesied alliance with Germany.

At the same time, this situation gives the German nation occasion to further stretch its military reach into the Middle East. Sure, Berlin can accuse Iran of opportunism after the war in Lebanon, but it is just as guilty. The United Nations, in implementing its ceasefire, awarded Germany command of the maritime component of the peacekeeping force; by doing so, the UN opened the door for Germany to deploy its navy to the region for the first time since World War ii. “This has led some to muse that the whole exercise has been a giant PR gambit to condition certain Middle Eastern powers, the United Nations and the United States into accepting a wider remit for Germany in the Middle East,” the Trumpet’s Ron Fraser wrote last year. “… Germany now has its navy deployed throughout the whole of the Mediterranean, one of the world’s most strategic waterways, from Gibraltar to Suez, and is currently seeking to extend its coverage of the Levant.”

The Gaza war provided just the pretext it needed to do just that. Now Germany is spearheading a host of European efforts aimed at limiting Gaza’s dependency on Iranian aid—and its access to Iranian arms. Shutting down the estimated 1,000 tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border tops its list; it has offered the services of a crack tunnel-detection team to Egypt. The EU is discussing sending a naval force to patrol the Mediterranean to prevent Iranian weapons shipments from reaching Gaza’s shores; France has already sent a frigate to the Gazan coast for that purpose. These are just a few of the flotilla of proposals Europe is aggressively endorsing, including one that would put European soldiers on the Gaza-Israel border.

Germany is backing these plans with an array of diplomatic actions against Iran. This week, it took steps to restrict German businesses in their dealings with Iran. This is the latest move in what has been a steady three-year choking off of a once-robust trade relationship. German and other European leaders are looking to pass steeper sanctions against Iran for rejecting UN demands to stop enriching uranium. On Monday, EU foreign ministers defied public protests in Tehran and removed the Iranian dissident group the People’s Mujahedin of Iran from their list of terrorist organizations. This is the group that first exposed the truth about Iran’s nuclear program, and has continued to provide solid intelligence against the Iranian regime over the years. Meanwhile, Germany has steadily ramped up its arms sales, trade and other relations with Iran’s neighborhood competitors, most notably Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

These initiatives appear to be the start of something. The turning of a page. Germany’s determination to increase the size of its footprint in the Middle East is becoming clearer by the day.

Also becoming clearer is the fact that, while it has found reasonable alibis for its endeavors that appear to favor the interests of the locals, Germany isn’t motivated by any love for either the Muslims or the Jews. Mr. Fraser exposed this fact last year in his prescient article “German Navy—Next Stop Gaza?”: “Since foisted off onto the public as Germany’s obligation to ‘protect Israel,’ being its due penance for the Holocaust, German Middle East policy is in fact geared to achieving, by diplomacy, trade, aid and military assistance, that which Rommel was denied in battle: the extension of German hegemony into the strategically oil-rich Middle East. This strategy has recently taken on even greater urgency due to Russia having gained such a dominant position in the German energy supply market, a strategic weakness that the dominant European national economy cannot afford” (Feb. 4, 2008). The truth in this analysis is even plainer one year later. Russia is less and less trustworthy, Europe is more desperate for energy, and the Middle East is the best, most accessible place to get it.

The best place, that is, if Iran can be put in check. It grows far less inviting the closer Iran gets to becoming a nuclear-armed regime, controlling several neighboring states and ruling the hearts of a region-wide army of radicals eager to kill and die for their cause.

To this point, the steps Germany has taken against Iran in order to secure its own interests haven’t garnered much notice. But that is beginning to change. And there is far more going on beneath the surface than most observers recognize. (Read Gerald Flurry’s article “Why You Must Watch Europe” to better understand the enormous meaning of Europe’s increasing role in Middle Eastern affairs.)

Truly, Germany is waking up to the Iranian threat and preparing for battle.

And here is that battle, in prophecy: “And at the time of the end [the time just ahead of us] shall the king of the south [an Iranian-led, radical Middle Eastern power] push at him: and the king of the north [a German-led European power] 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. He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown …” (Daniel 11:40-41).

The trends we have touched on here are quite prophetically important and worthy of watching. That they revolve around a German-led Europe getting agitated by and taking steps to limit Iran suggests just how close we are to the fulfillment of Daniel’s pivotal prophecy!