A shipment of Iranian armaments was intercepted earlier this month in the Gulf of Suez. The incident demonstrates Iran’s audacity in standing up to world powers, and world powers’ ineffective response.

In early October, a German-owned freighter was apprehended carrying eight containers of ammunition from Iran en route to Syria—possibly for delivery to Hezbollah. The shipment violates the UN weapons embargo in place against Iran. Spiegel Online reported October 12,

In an operation reported on by Spiegel over the weekend, U.S. soldiers entered the freighter Hansa India in the Gulf of Suez at the beginning of October and discovered seven containers full of 7.62 millimeter ammunition suitable for Kalashnikov rifles. An eighth container was full of cartridges suitable for the manufacture of additional rounds. The incident is particularly awkward for Berlin as the Hansa India is registered to the Hamburg-based shipping company Leonhardt & Blumberg.

The ship has been chartered by the state-owned shipping company Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines for some years, according to the German company. This of course means there is a good chance this was not an isolated incident.

A somewhat similar incident took place earlier this year when a Russian-operated ship was suspected of transporting weapons, possibly missiles, to Iran.

These discoveries provide a glimpse of what could easily be ongoing shipments of weapons into Iran, and between Iran and terrorist organizations—completely thwarting the United Nations Security Council resolution that prohibits any arms shipments either into or out of Iran.

This latest incident also comes at a time when Tehran supposedly is amenable to talks with world powers. If sanctions are already proving unsuccessful, will negotiations prove any more fruitful?

Iran’s blatant disregard of current sanctions—and its ability to thwart those sanctions—is just more evidence of the ineffectiveness of the efforts of the six major world powers that are supposedly committed to solving the Iranian problem. Here is Germany, one of those six, actually providing the transportation for Iran to export terrorism in the region.

Add to this the fact that Russia and China have consistently shot down any hard-hitting sanctions in the United Nations Security Council and are prepared to undermine any gasoline sanctions pushed by the U.S. outside the Security Council. On Tuesday, Russia wiped out America’s hopes that Moscow may be more supportive of sanctions following Tehran’s disclosure of another uranium enrichment site last month. After meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made it clear that Moscow would not back any sanctions against Iran. “At the current stage, all forces should be thrown at supporting the negotiating process,” he told reporters at a news conference. “Threats, sanctions and threats of pressure in the current situation, we are convinced, would be counterproductive.”

That Iran is dangerous and needs to be stopped for the sake of the rest of the world is recognized by many nations—including many Arab states. But there are enough powerful nations that wish to undermine the U.S. and that are prepared to support Iran, for no effective consensus to be achieved among world powers. And, at this point, no power is prepared to act unilaterally. Meanwhile, Iran—the biblically prophesied end-time “king of the south” (Daniel 11:40)—continues to demonstrate that it is not about to back down. This makes a future confrontation inevitable. Read our booklet The King of the South for details of that prophesied confrontation.