Middle East

President Barack Obama used the occasion of the Islamic New Year on March 20 to release a videotaped message on the Internet appealing to the Iranian people and leadership to reconcile with the U.S. The U.S. president spoke of “a new day” for American-Iranian relations and a “common humanity” that binds the two peoples together. In response, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said world powers had now been persuaded that they could not block Iran’s nuclear progress. Robert Gibbs, the U.S. president’s spokesman, said further steps to entice Iran to engage in dialogue have been planned. Tehran, however, will only agree to dialogue with Washington as a means of buying time and hiding its true goals. What’s more, as former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton writes, Iran will see dialogue “as confirmation of U.S. weakness and evidence that its policies are succeeding.”

A former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard told U.S. intelligence officials that Iran had financed North Korean moves to develop a nuclear weapons program on Syrian soil, the Associated Press reported March 19. Gen. Ali Reza Asghari, a former Iranian deputy defense minister who defected to the U.S. in February 2007, provided a detailed account of Iran’s sponsorship of Syria’s nuclear weapons program. This revelation and other intelligence reports confirm that both the North Koreans and the Syrians were helping Iran develop a nuclear weapons program on Syrian soil, which led to the Israeli airstrike that destroyed a top-secret nuclear reactor in Syria in September 2007.

Iran’s plan to consolidate its influence in Iraq by establishing a federal Shiite zone in the oil-rich south of Iraq suffered a setback with the Iraqi provincial elections in January, according to Stratfor. Now, in order to retain its influence in Iraq, Stratfor says, Iran’s plan is to “shore up support among the various Iraqi Shiite parties, stick to its usual tactics of playing Shiite rivalries against each other and use its commercial, intelligence and religious links to diversify its support base” (March 25). To this end, with Iraq’s December national election in mind, two of the most powerful political figures in Iran recently visited Iraq. On Wednesday, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani met with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s top Shiite religious leader. Earlier this month, Iranian Assembly of Experts Chairman Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani led a 105-person delegation to Iraq, where he met with a host of Iraq’s top figures including al-Sistani and the country’s three other grand ayatollahs, and the Iraqi president and prime minister. Continue to watch Iran’s involvement in Iraq as the U.S. winds down its military presence in that country.

In Afghanistan, the government has begun preliminary negotiations with the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, the terror group responsible for the majority of suicide bombings in the country, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Meanwhile, following Washington’s indication that it would welcome Iran’s assistance in Afghanistan, Iran’s foreign minister visited the country on March 20 to 21 in a demonstration of Tehran’s influence there. Stratfor asserts that Iran is likely trying to revive the Northern Alliance, a coalition of Afghan minorities, to counter the Taliban—which would throw a spanner in the works for Washington’s plans to negotiate with the Taliban.

Europe

America has not trusted any other nation with its research into anti-terrorism technology—until now. On March 16, the U.S. and Germany signed a treaty on scientific and technological cooperation in the field of civil security. The two countries will spend €10 to 20 million on four major projects by 2012. More importantly, German scientists will gain access to America’s top-secret laboratories, where America tests its latest counterterrorism technology, and vice versa. “Such openness would have been previously unimaginable,” Spiegel Online wrote. “Until now, the Americans have kept their efforts to develop new security technologies secret.” America kept these technologies secret for a reason. Security technologies are a matter of national security. For information on the acute danger America is opening itself up to, read “Alamogordo: A Mistake You Only Make Once” from the May 1999 Trumpet.

On Monday, Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany announced before parliament his “irreversible” decision to resign. Then, on Tuesday, the government of the Czech Republic narrowly lost a no-confidence vote—meaning the ruling coalition is on its way out. The economy played a major role in the fall of both these governments. Gyurcsany first revealed his intentions of stepping down last Saturday, saying that he was ready to make way for a new government to lead the country out of the financial crisis. Center-right Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek lost a no-confidence vote amid a media scandal, though American think tank Stratfor reports that “Ultimately, it was Prague’s handling of the economic crisis that brought Topolanek and his government down” (March 24). As the crisis in Europe intensifies, so too will the opportunity for a strong European leader to step into the breach, an event specifically foretold in biblical prophecy.

Europe and the U.S. do not see eye to eye on the financial crisis. On Wednesday, ahead of the G-20 meeting next week, Czech Prime Minister Topolanek, who holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, called America’s stimulus plan “the road to hell.” Although many in Europe have condemned Topolanek’s remarks, the comments highlight major differences in Europe’s and America’s views on the crisis. America wants Europe to spend its way out of the problem with a U.S.-style stimulus package. Britain is trying to persuade Europe to sign on to this idea. But Europe, especially Germany, is wary of it. Unlike America, German Chancellor Angela Merkel sees better regulation, not more spending, as the solution. Many European leaders, such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, agree. Watch for Europe to try to impose its will on the U.S. at the upcoming G-20 summit.

German Chancellor Merkel called for nato to be reorganized and to draw closer to Russia on Thursday. “nato needs to adapt its strategy to meet new challenges,” said Merkel in a parliamentary address in the run-up to the alliance’s 60th-anniversary summit on April 3-4. Watch the upcoming nato summit for a change in the alliance that favors Germany.

Asia

The role of tactical nuclear weapons in the Russian Navy may become more prominent in the near future. Senior Russian naval officer Oleg Burtsev told state-run television on Monday that the Russian Navy may fit new, less-powerful nuclear warheads to existing types of cruise missiles. “There is no longer any need to equip missiles with powerful nuclear warheads,” said Burtsev. “We can install low-yield warheads on existing cruise missiles.” These low-yield, tactical nuclear warheads have a much shorter range than strategic nuclear weapons, but are intended for use within a theater of battle. The Russians claim that an arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons is necessary to counter a massive nato advantage in conventional weapons. Watch for Europe’s reaction to Russia’s growing military power. How Europe responds to Russian ambition is more important, from a prophetic perspective, than the growing power of Russia itself.

Africa

French President Sarkozy visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo on March 26 and offered one concrete suggestion to help bring peace to Central Africa: share the mineral wealth. French nuclear firm Areva “has taken advantage of the visit to sign a deal to exploit uranium in DR Congo,” the bbc reported. President Sarkozy says that his plan for the Congo’s wealth—and that of other African nations on his agenda—is meant to help bring peace to Central Africa. The reality, though, is that the deals are intended to benefit France and the rest of Europe. As the Trumpethas stated many times, expect further EU involvement in Africa as the global race to secure African resources continues.

Anglo-America

The federal government wants more control over the economy. On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner proposed sweeping federal controls over financial institutions. This new authority would give federal regulators the power not only to oversee the activities of gigantic global financial institutions, but also to seize them and shut them down if they are near the point of failing and deemed too big to fail, the Washington Times reported. “To address these failures will require comprehensive reform—not modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the road,” Geithner said. If adopted, the measures would check massive and heretofore unregulated hedge, private equity and venture capital funds and set the precedent for yet more federal control of the failing American economy. Both the government and the free market, however, have been and will be completely unable to save a system based on selfish human nature.

On Wednesday, Secretary Geithner retracted a comment he made that sent the value of the dollar plunging within 10 minutes. In response to a proposal by China’s central bank to replace the dollar as world reserve currency, Geithner said that “we’re actually quite open to that.” Though White House spokesman Robert Gibbs responded by saying the administration expects the dollar to stay the world’s reserve currency for “a long, long time,” and the dollar regained most of its losses against the euro and other currencies, later in the day a meager turnout for a treasury bond auction sent interest rates up and raised fears that the United States may not be able to sell its $2.5 trillion of debt this year. The Times reports that investors were also scared by congressional budget plans that would double the debt the Treasury has to sell in the next five years to nearly $12 trillion.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that Congress should increase spending on border security. Clinton promised Mexico $80 million in Black Hawk helicopters. Due to border drug wars raging between heavily armed drug cartels and law enforcement, more than 1,000 lives have already been lost in 2009.