Iran has responded to America’s end-of-the-year, engagement-or-else deadline by, among other things, test firing upgraded long-range missiles and temporarily seizing control of an Iraqi oil field. The latter incident, it has been widely reported, is not unusual. Since the Iran-Iraq War ended in 1988, there have been frequent territorial disputes along the border that separates the two nations. But as George Friedman noted at Stratfor on Monday, given the broader context of the current high-stakes showdown between the United States and Iran, the cross-border raid cannot be dismissed as insignificant.

Tehran ordered last weekend’s incursion, Friedman wrote, in order to send Washington a message. The Iranians, he wrote, “might initiate a conflict if they assume conflict is inevitable.” Added to that, the oil field seizure serves to remind the West that Iran has options should it be attacked or handcuffed with sanctions.

Last week, we wrote about the Obama administration’s efforts to slow down congressional legislation that would punish Iran for refusing to come clean on its nuclear program. Some White House insiders still hold out hope that Iran will accept the West’s offer for Iran to enrich its uranium abroad, which would only temporarily delay its nuclear capability.

There have been other reports, however, indicating that the White House is now preparing for the “next steps” to be taken in response to Iranian intransigence. The sticking point here is that President Obama desperately wants sanctions to be multilateral, which is another reason why he’s stonewalling the U.S. legislation. He’s buying time in order to persuade China, Japan and Russia to join the coalition. Otherwise, the sanctions would lose much of their bite.

“The door to diplomatic efforts is not completely slammed yet,” China’s envoy for the UN Security Council said on Monday. “We ask for more time to be given and efforts to be made to see if we can reach some sort of breakthrough.” The envoy’s comments clearly reflect the difficulty the United States is having in building an effective coalition against Iran.

This is a point not lost on the mullahs in Tehran. This week, Iran’s president dismissed the U.S.-imposed deadline and the threat of sanctions. “We told you that we are not afraid of sanctions against us and we are not intimidated,” Ahmadinejad said.

And so, as we head into the pivotal year of 2010, the United States is hoping for some kind of breakthrough—either with diplomacy or multilateral sanctions. In trying to squeeze a few more days into its timetable, the White House has now indicated it may extend the Iranian deadline to January 15.

This may be pushing it for Israel, whose timetable for acting—even if it means acting alone—might be shorter than America’s because of the existential threat a nuclear-armed Iran poses to the Jewish state. Even still, it would be a huge gamble for Israel to preemptively act without American backing, given the fact that it would need the U.S. to help defend against what could be a very harsh Iranian retaliation.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Netanyahu opened his Knesset address by saying his administration was extensively working to counteract the Iranian nuclear threat. “[S]anctions are an important and even necessary condition,” he said. “[T]ime will tell if they are sufficient to stop the Iranian nuclear program. I assess that the UN will make decisions on the matter in February,” Netanyahu said.

It’s hard to say when Israel’s timetable ends with respect to the sanctions option and whether or not it is prepared, if necessary, to go it alone in using force.

Iran’s timetable, as noted above, is even less predictable. “Iran may be calculating for now that the United States will restrain Israel if Israel can’t carry out a successful military strike on its own,” Stratfor wrote on December 23. “The Iranians therefore want the United States to think long and hard about the Iranian reaction to such a strike. In addition to mine warfare in the Strait of Hormuz and terrorist attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas, the United States has been served a recent reminder of the damage Iran can do in Iraq”—with the cross-border incursion.

So, from a prophetic standpoint, what are we to make of this standoff? And what can we expect to happen in the near future?

First of all, the Bible does not explicitly say that Israel or America won’t attempt to forcefully eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat. What we do know, based on prophecy, is that if any action is taken, it will certainly not eliminate the Iranian threat.

The Bible says that God has broken the pride the United States once had in its power (Leviticus 26:19). It still has an awesome array of military firepower, but it lacks the will to use it.

Israel’s will has also been broken. The once-mighty lion of Judah sustained a devastating “wound,” beginning in 1993 with the Oslo peace process, and it has progressively worsened ever since (see Hosea 5:13).

Iran, meanwhile, is prophesied to push and push and push at the German-led “king of the north” shortly before the outbreak of World War iii. This aggressive pushing, which the United States and Israel is well familiar with, will soon provoke the revived “Holy” Roman Empire to retaliate with overwhelming force to smash the Iranian-led “king of the south” (Daniel 11:40).

What is remarkable about the Daniel 11 prophecy, as we have noted before, is the fact that the U.S. and Israel are nowhere mentioned in the passage! Even prior to that clash, when Israel fully awakens to the fact that it has been mortally wounded, Hosea 5:13 says biblical Judah will go to Assyria (modern-day Germany) for help. Here again, the United States is not found in this prophecy because, by the time it’s fulfilled, America’s power will have vanished!

If recent history and Bible prophecy teach us anything, it’s that the United States and Israel lack the will to do anything substantial about the Iranian problem. There may be more feckless sanctions. It’s even possible that strategic air strikes may be ordered against Iranian nuclear sites.

What is also possible, if not probable, is that for all our rhetoric, we will stand idly by and do nothing about the problem—or, as Stratfor suggests, that Iran will beat us to the punch.

What is absolutely sure, from a biblical standpoint, is that our breathtaking decline in global power and influence will soon result in our complete disappearance from the geopolitical battlefield. The Iranian “push,” which is now aimed primarily at the U.S. and Israel, will certainly factor into that downfall.

But standing on the sidelines, observing and learning from all the ***-for-tat maneuvers in the current showdown, is a newly revived “Holy” Roman Empire. It’s that showdown—between the kings of the north and south—that will trigger the next world war.