Three days after 9/11, during weekly Friday prayers across Iran, conservative clerics actually refrained from leading worshipers in chanting “death to America.” Iran, which had been sponsoring terrorist attacks against the United States for more than two decades, was understandably concerned that 9/11 might awaken a sleeping giant. And so, in order to avoid landing at the top of America’s hit list, Iran’s knee-jerk reaction to the terrorist attack was to immediately tone down its combative rhetoric.

“Islam condemns the massacre of defenseless people, whether Muslim or Christian or others, anywhere and by any means,” Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei said in his first public remarks after 9/11. President Mohammad Khatami expressed “deep regret and sympathy” for relatives of the victims. Iran’s foreign minister even told his British counterpart, Jack Straw, that there needed to be an international consensus to eradicate terrorism!

And how did the United States respond to this diplomatic ruse? Unbelievably, by extending an invitation for Iran to join the post-9/11 anti-terrorism coalition!

According to Reuters, the U.S. sent a message to Iran congratulating it for its “positive statements” after 9/11. Richard Haas, who directed policy planning for the State Department, told bbc News that no country, including Iran, would be ruled out of the international coalition to combat terrorism.

“The U.S. and Iran have consulted in diplomatic frameworks about Afghanistan,” Haas said. “I would not rule out the possibility at the moment of any country necessarily working with the United States and the international community.”

Secretary of State Colin Powell was also pleased with the many favorable statements coming out of Tehran in the aftermath of the terrorist attack. “Iran made a positive statement” that was “worth exploring,” he told cbs. Regarding British Foreign Minister Jack Straw’s diplomatic talks with Iran, Powell said, “We’re anxious to explore whatever opportunities for cooperation there might be in the fight against all forms of terrorism.”

According to a senior State Department official interviewed by Agence France-Presse, “Washington hoped Straw’s groundbreaking trip to Tehran could lay the foundation for Iran’s possible inclusion in the anti-terrorism coalition” (emphasis mine throughout).

Being wooed by Western diplomats after the deadliest terrorist attack ever on American soil must have come as welcome relief to the Islamic Republic. Having fully escaped the wrath of American retaliation against terrorist groups and their state sponsors, Iran wasted little time in reassuming its natural position as head of the terrorist snake.

“We are not with you,” Ayatollah Khamenei said just one week after he had condemned the 9/11 attacks—effectively slamming the door shut on any possibility that Iran might join the Western coalition. He called America’s behavior “disgusting,” saying the U.S. was neither “competent” nor “sincere” enough to lead a global campaign against terrorism. “America’s hands are stained with all the crimes committed by the Zionist regime,” Khamenei said.

With its true colors once again exposed, the thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations that Washington had hoped for quickly returned to its customary deep-freeze status. In his State of the Union address on Jan. 29, 2002, President Bush identified Iran as one of three nations in the “axis of evil.” He also told Congress that the war would not end “until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

The reality, however, is that the United States had squandered a golden opportunity to finally confront the number-one state sponsor of international terrorism. “While the U.S. wants to eliminate terrorism and is becoming much more aggressive in trying to do so,” we wrote in the very first Trumpet issue published after 9/11, “its efforts will fall short. It frankly does not have the necessary will to tackle the enormity of the problem!” (November 2001).

Later in the article, we wrote, “As we now examine the facts emerging from this war”—keep in mind, this was written a little over a month after 9/11—“we can see unequivocally that the terrorist snake will survive America’s aggression—head intact, and stronger than ever.”

Ponder the accuracy of that forecast. America’s efforts have fallen far short of its stated objectives going into the war against terrorism—to “rid the world of evil,” as President Bush put it. And Iran, unquestionably, has emerged from the so-called war against terrorism stronger than ever before!

Today, we begin a new calendar year in which “Iran will dominate,” as Charles Krauthammer wrote last week. It’s a “make-or-break year for stopping Iran,” Barry Rubin added. As Brad Macdonald noted yesterday, even the New York Times is now running opinion pieces calling on the U.S. to bomb Iran.

If only the United States had the will to tackle this problem eight years ago when it would have been much, much more manageable—and when Iran actually feared an American reprisal. Or even five years ago, when America could have used its early success in Iraq as a stepping stone to confronting Iran. Or even two years ago, when the Bush administration was beating its chest about doing whatever it would take to prevent Ahmadinejad from starting World War iii.

What a different world this would now be.

Of course, in the final analysis, none of those what ifs really matter. All that matters is what God has prophesied—which is why, as we have been saying all along, the United States will lose the war on terror. In fact, it will get so bad, we wrote back in November 2001, that “there will soon come a point when the U.S. won’t even be a factor in this war.”

This year, 2010, may be the year the United States is factored out of the Iranian problem.