WorldWatch

Middle East

Want war? Keep ignoring Iran

Over a mere four days in February, Iran helped orchestrate terrorist attacks on Israeli officials in three separate countries (Azerbaijan, India and Thailand), dispatched hundreds of soldiers to Syria to school Assad’s forces in butchering dissenters, cut off oil supplies to France and the Netherlands (and gave an ultimatum to four other European states), and inaugurated to much fanfare three developments in its nuclear weapons program. Just another productive week of provoking, antagonizing and destroying for Iran.

What was most remarkable, though, was the West’s reaction. A cnn poll showed that 60 percent of Americans believe using diplomacy against Iran is the right response; more than 20 percent believe no action is necessary. The consensus among Western elites is that Iran is ready to sit down and negotiate.

Dennis Ross, who served for two years on the National Security Council as President Obama’s special assistant on Iran, explained the need for engaging Iran in peace talks: “Notwithstanding all their bluster, there are signs that Tehran is now looking for a way out,” he wrote. “With Iran reeling from sanctions, the proper environment now exists for diplomacy to work” (New York Times, February 14; emphasis added throughout).

Bluster? That’s not the term Tal Yehoshua-Koren, the Israeli woman hurled from her car when it was exploded by a terrorist’s bomb in New Delhi just a week earlier, would use to describe Iran’s actions. It’s not how the residents of the Israeli town of Sderot, who live under constant threat of rocket attack from Iran-enabled Hamas, would describe Iran’s behavior. “Bluster” certainly isn’t the term the relatives of the thousands of Syrians, including hundreds of children, butchered by Syrian forces with assistance from Iranian soldiers would use. To its victims, Iran’s conduct is consistently combative, aggressive and violent, and in many instances, barbaric.

Earlier in February, Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a live television broadcast, rallied his people to destroy Israel. He called Israel a “cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut,” and promised Iranian support of any regime or enterprise that attempts to destroy the Jewish state.

This is not mere semantics. The use of “bluster” to describe aggressive, ruthless behavior reveals some deep-seated issues with the West’s perception of reality. Iran is consistently displaying by its actions that it’s not interested in serious diplomacy and long-term peace. These events provide a glimpse into Iran’s true character and ambition, and portend greater, more deadly, confrontation. But the West rejects this reality.

Not all have been so ignorant, however. “The single biggest danger in the Middle East today is not the risk of a six-day Israeli war against Iran,” wrote Harvard historian Niall Ferguson in The Daily Beast. “It is the risk that Western wishful nonthinking allows the mullahs of Tehran to get their hands on nuclear weapons. Because I am in no doubt that they would take full advantage of such a lethal lever” (February 6). Historian Benny Morris warned in the Los Angeles Times that “if the Iranian nuclear project is not halted … there will be, by miscalculation, Iranian assault or Israeli preemption, a nuclear war in the Middle East” (February 14).

These men grasp the reality of what we’re witnessing. They’re not rejecting Iran’s actions as mere bluster. They’re looking at Iran, at its uncompromising drive for nuclear weapons, at its enthusiastic sponsoring of Islamist terrorism, at its constant effort to undermine Western interests, at its promise to annihilate the Jewish state, and simply believing what their eyes and ears are telling them.

It’s worth considering the primary motivation behind Iranian foreign policy. Inside Iran, the belief of a returning Mahdi, or Twelfth Imam, is a defining doctrine within the most populous group of Shiites (known as Ithna Ashari, or “Twelvers”), the Iranian president included. And as staunch adherents to the mahdaviat, Ahmadinejad and his supporters don’t simply believe the Mahdi is about to return—they consider it their responsibility to bring about the apocalyptic conditions that will surround his return.

As Joel Rosenburg, former aide to Benjamin Netanyahu, put it: “[I]n order to bring about this Islamic messiah, the Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam, Islamic leaders need to hasten his coming by destroying little Satan, Israel, and the great Satan, the United States. … [T]heleaders actually believe they need to create bloody carnage, the death of millions of people in order to create the conditions for the Mahdi to bring peace.”

Prof. Bernard Lewis, an expert in Middle East history, discussed Iran’s infatuation with the Mahdi’s return in his keynote address at the 2008 Jerusalem Conference. “Iran’s leadership comprises a group of extreme fanatical Muslims who believe that their messianic times have arrived,” he warned. He then cautioned the West against subscribing to the mad (mutually assured destruction) principle, which says that Iran will avoid nuclear war because it would only ensure its own destruction. In Iran’s case, Lewis explained, “mad is not a deterrent factor, but rather an inducement. They feel that they can hasten the final messianic process.”

Iran wants war. Yet despite these terrifying ambitions, and Iran’s systematic march toward acquiring the means to carry them out, the U.S. and much of the West still pursue negotiation and compromise—policies that only make war all the more inevitable.

Afghanistan

Getting out sooner than planned

The United States announced February 1 it will end its combat role in Afghanistan a year earlier than expected, apparently taking Kabul by surprise. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the U.S. would stop combat operations before the end of 2013. Washington had previously said it would withdraw most combat troops by the end of 2014. The announcement will assuredly provide a lift to the Taliban, who are holding out for the day they can take over. In a classified report leaked to British media, nato said the Taliban remain confident they can gain control of the country. “Taliban commanders, along with rank and file members, increasingly believe their control of Afghanistan is inevitable. Though the Taliban suffered severely in 2011, its strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remains intact,” the report says.

Iran

Pushy as ever

Tensions between Europe and Iran keep ratcheting up. In January Iran again threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to a Western oil embargo. On January 23, EU foreign ministers agreed to place a ban on Iranian oil imports in an effort to stop Tehran’s nuclear program. European nations were to immediately cease signing new oil contracts, with states having the option of honoring current contracts through to July 1. This will affect some 18 percent of Iran’s oil exports. The EU also froze the assets of Iran’s central bank and put sanctions on its state-owned Bank Tejarat, the country’s third-largest bank. Iran reacted defiantly, with Emad Hosseini, spokesman for parliament’s energy committee, saying that Iran retained its threat to shut the Persian Gulf to shipping. Mohammad Ismail Kowsari, deputy head of Iran’s committee on national security, said the Hormuz Strait “would definitely be closed if the sale of Iranian oil is violated in any way.” The Associated Press wrote: “The escalating confrontation is fraught with risks—of rising energy prices, global financial instability, and potential military activity to keep the strait open” (January 23).

Meanwhile, Iran’s nuclear program steamrolls ahead, achieving two major advancements on February 15. First, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad personally supervised a team of scientists as they installed the first Iranian-made fuel rod into a nuclear reactor in northern Tehran. Iran has said it was forced to manufacture its own nuclear fuel rods because international sanctions banned it from buying them on foreign markets. The irna state-run news agency boasted that this is the final step in Iran mastering the entire nuclear fuel cycle, from extracting uranium to producing finished rods. Second, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that a new generation of Iranian centrifuges is now in operation, at the Islamic Republic’s main uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. The announcement of these two major technical advancements shows that Iran remains defiant toward increasingly tough Western sanctions—and that it has the resources to keep progressing with its nuclear weapons program.

Iraq

Any better than under Saddam?

Iraq is becoming a “police state,” an international human rights group says, as the Shiite-led government cracks down harshly on dissidents. In its “World Report 2012,” Human Rights Watch says Iraq is slipping back into authoritarianism as security forces abuse protesters, harass journalists, torture prisoners and intimidate activists. The January 22 report says Iraq’s human rights situation is worse than it was a year ago, with the U.S. failing to leave behind a stable democracy. The group says it has uncovered a secret prison where detainees are tortured; those who control the facility report to the military office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. It also says at least 10 protesters and bystanders have been killed and more than 250 injured in Kurdistan.

‘Arab Spring’ feeds anti-Semitism

New democratic freedom has led to an explosion of anti-Semitic sentiment in Middle Eastern nations whose dictatorships have been toppled in the past year. That was the conclusion of a report released on January 22 by Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry. “[While] the popular uprisings in the Arab world do not represent a general change in attitude towards Israel, Zionism and the Jews, it seems the anti-Semitic discourse and incitement have become more extreme and violent,” the report said. “Charges of an international Jewish conspiracy have been a central motif in the anti-Semitic propaganda that has accompanied the Arab Spring uprisings.”

Europe

Germany

The ‘de facto supremo of Europe’

Davos is the scene for the annual gathering of elites to reflect on the world’s current economic condition.

It is the outgrowth of an idea first given air by German-born economist Klaus Schwab. Schwab launched the European Management Forum in 1971, attracting European business leaders to Davos in Switzerland each subsequent January for an interchange of ideas on a range of business management issues. Over time, the agenda was broadened to embrace economic, social and political issues, with world leaders being invited to participate. The gathering then was renamed the World Economic Forum.

One of these forums in particular was destined to have powerful effect on the world balance of power. In January 1989, East German Prime Minister Hans Modrow met with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the World Economic Forum in Davos to discuss German reunification. Ten months later, the Berlin Wall fell. That event completely altered the status quo—the prevailing balance of power between the United States and the ussr—that had existed for over 40 years.

Track forward to this year’s Davos summit in January. What began in 1971 as a German idea, was used as a forum 18 years later for leaders to prepare to reunify Germany, 22 years further on featured as its keynote speaker Germany’s current chancellor, Angela Merkel. The chancellor’s speech was a milestone in the coming of age of her newly assertive nation, boldly declaring a German agenda for Europe.

In one of Merkel’s key statements, she unequivocally endorsed the transfer of European Union member nations’ sovereign powers to EU imperial control: “We will only be able to strengthen our common currency if we coordinate our policies more closely and are prepared to gradually give up more powers to the EU. If we make loads of promises about debt reduction and sound budgeting, those need to be things that can be enforced or brought to court in the future. The point of the fiscal compact, after all, is to make it possible to check on those commitments. That means giving our [European] institutions more monitoring rights—and more bite.”

Further emphasizing the agenda for a Germanized Europe, Merkel even indicated that Germany is “the representative of all European countries,” emphasizing that her solution to today’s Europe in crisis is “more ‘integration,’ by transferring more powers from a national level to EU institutions such as the European Court of Justice, so that the continent is ‘turned into a Europe that works’”—no doubt a Europe forced to work the German way! (EUobserver.com, January 26). EUobserver.com said it was clear that Chancellor Merkel now ranks as “the de facto supremo of Europe.”

Glaringly absent from the spotlight that blazed on Chancellor Merkel was the leader of France, Germany’s former partner in promoting the European imperial dream. President Nicolas Sarkozy is but the poodle that trots behind the German shepherd. This fact even further served to highlight that Europe is today being led, dominated and domineered by but one nation: Germany.

Germany

France

The EU taxman cometh!

Germany and France plan to give the EU new powers to “coordinate” taxation, Agence France-Presse reported January 18, citing a confidential Franco-German paper seen by several media outlets. “European institutions and member states should accelerate the process of tax coordination,” the document says. “In particular, the negotiation of the European Commission proposals on energy tax directive, common consolidated corporate tax base and common system of financial transaction tax should be accelerated.” The EU’s push for a common corporate tax rate is just the beginning. Already EU officials say this will empower Brussels to impose new energy taxes based on carbon emissions. Britain is opposed to giving the EU more power over taxation. The proposal is yet more evidence of Europe moving toward closer integration while Britain tries to go in the other direction.

Spain

Gibraltar

Pushing for the Rock

Spain’s new government is pushing Britain to negotiate over Gibraltar without consideration for the wishes of the inhabitants of Gibraltar. Spanish Foreign Minister José García-Margallo wrote to his British counterpart to this effect after Britain’s prime minister promised in January to respect Gibraltar’s right to self-determination. This “marks a hardening of Madrid’s position over its controversial claim for the return of the Rock” (Times, January 31).

Just over a week before this push to exclude Gibraltar from negotiations, former Europe Minister Peter Hain said that in 2002, then Prime Minister Tony Blair came close to giving up the Rock. Hain claims Britain made a deal with Spain on April 18, 2002, to share sovereignty over the area and allow Britain to keep a naval base there. The Spanish vetoed the deal. So Britain has already come close to giving away the Rock. With the Spanish pushing for Gibraltar again, will Britain have the will to hold on to it? Bible prophecy says no.

Croatia

We want EU

Croatia voted to join the EU in a referendum held on January 22. Of the 48 percent of the population that turned out to vote, 68 percent voted yes. Germany deliberately broke apart Yugoslavia to gain power over the Balkans, and now Croatia is joining Germany’s club. For more information, request our free booklet

Germany’s Conquest of the Balkans.

Asia

Philippines

Facing punishment

Beijing must punish the Philippines economically for Manila’s moves toward closer military ties with the United States, China’s state-run Global Times said on January 29. The article was a response to an agreement the previous week between Philippine and American officials to boost cooperation in several areas including maritime defense and security. Manila also said it is considering hosting more U.S. troops and conducting more joint military drills with U.S. forces. The Philippines is among several nations with which China is engaged in territorial disputes regarding the South China Sea, and Beijing views the U.S. as an unwelcome participant in those skirmishes. The Global Times, published by the Communist Party, said China must apply economic pressure on the Philippines in order to make it abandon its cooperation with Washington. Although Manila may cling to the declining U.S. in the short term, it will eventually be won or forced over to allegiance with China.

China

Asia’s big military spender

China’s military spending will double by 2015, swelling it to more than the combined defense budgets of the rest of the Asia Pacific, according to a report published February 14. Global research group ihs projects that by 2015, Beijing’s military budget will double to us$238.2 billion, more than the us$232.5 billion spent by Asia’s 12 chief military powers, including India and Japan.

From 2000 to 2009, Beijing has reported defense budget increases averaging 12 percent annually, but analysts believe the actual increases are substantially more than China reports. The release of the ihs report was timed to coincide with a mid-February visit to the U.S. by China’s president-in-waiting Xi Jinping. Xi and other Chinese leaders have expressed concern about Washington’s decision to realign its military strategy to focus on the Asia Pacific region, saying China’s military expansion poses no threat to its neighbors. But the actions of China’s neighbors reveal that they do feel threatened. India, for example, has in recent weeks obtained a nuclear-powered submarine, moved to acquire its first aircraft carrier, and announced plans to buy 126 French fighter jets, all to help it counter China’s rise.

China’s rising power will prompt more and more Asian states to bolster their defenses, but Bible prophecy says that all of Asia’s military might will soon be pooled together to form a colossal Eastern military bloc.

A big appetite for coal

China surpassed Japan in 2011 to become the world’s top coal importer, according to data published January 26. The switch was driven by robust Chinese demand and by a drop in Japan’s imports after the March 2011 earthquake damaged many of its coal-fired power plants. In 2009, China overtook the U.S. to become the world’s largest energy consumer. Its economic rate of growth is historically unprecedented, and its frenetic drive for resources is intensifying the global scramble for the planet’s wealth.

President-in-waiting warns U.S.

China’s upcoming president traveled to the United States in early February to issue a message of wooing and warning. Xi Jinping offered America deeper economic cooperation as long as Washington heeds Beijing’s demands on Tibet and Taiwan. As America’s financial condition deteriorates, the government is finding that it has to give in to its creditors’ demands on more and more issues. As King Solomon wrote in the ancient book of Proverbs, “Just as the rich rule the poor, so the borrower is servant to the lender.”

Russia

Moving forward at jet speed

At the end of January, Russian aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi tested its Serial Three Su-35S Flanker-E fighter jet for the first time. The Su-35S can fly more than 2,200 miles without refueling, its maximum speed is around 1,400 mph, and its ceiling is 59,000 feet. The jets can also detect aircraft to a range of almost 250 miles, farther than any other combat aircraft. The Su-35S has two central digital computers, advanced avionics and a new radar system with phased array antennas. Weaponry carried by the Su-35S includes laser-guided and unguided bombs, anti-radar missiles, a 30mm cannon, and anti-aircraft missiles. Sukhoi expects to sell the new fighters not only to Russia, but also China, India, Malaysia, Brazil and Indonesia, which would represent a significant boost to the military capability of these Eastern powers.

India

Bypassing dollar for Iran’s oil

India has agreed to buy Iran’s oil with gold rather than the U.S. dollar. India now joins China and Russia in ignoring Western sanctions on Tehran’s financial business and oil exports. China is expected to soon switch to gold for Iranian oil purchases. Both India and China are superpowers in terms of gold holdings. Together, they buy around 1 million barrels of Iranian oil each day, 40 percent of Iran’s total exports. By using gold, India and China allow Tehran to bypass the freeze on its central bank’s assets and work around the EU’s oil embargo. Analysts also expect the colossal amounts involved in these transactions to boost the price of gold and diminish the utility of the dollar on global markets.

Latin America, Africa

Argentina

President: Prince William get out

On February 7, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner criticized Prince William’s deployment to the Falkland Islands. The British heir to the throne is accompanying one of the Royal Navy’s most modern warships and will serve for three months as a military search and rescue pilot. Kirchner accused Britain of “militarizing” the long-standing dispute over the South Atlantic islands. Argentina continues to demand that Britain return the Falklands to its control after it lost dominion over them in 1833. Argentine troops invaded the Falklands in 1982, but were defeated by the British. Britain continues to say that as long as the Falklands inhabitants desire to remain British, it will defend its possession. Continue to watch events in the South Atlantic. Based on Bible prophecy, the Trumpet has predicted that Britain will eventually lose control of these islands.

Brazil

EU-Mercosur: Partners in the making

Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota met with his visiting German counterpart, Guido Westerwelle, on February 13, calling for the signing of the long-delayed free trade agreement between the European Union and the South American Mercosur trade bloc. With Brazil emerging as a leading nation in the Mercosur union, its developing alliance with Germany, the leading nation in the European Union, is likely to produce momentous economic results. Expect South America to become more aligned with Germany in the near future.

U.S. ‘reset’ backfires

Ten months after U.S. President Barack Obama pledged to help develop its potentially massive offshore oil reserves, Brazil spurned the U.S. and opted to sell its oil to China. China recently bought a 40 percent stake in Repsol ypf’s Brazil unit, which has drilling rights to the Santos Offshore Basin, according to the Washington Times. The Times also revealed that China has bought a 30 percent stake in Galp Energia, a Portuguese company with rights to the same basin. As rival powers snatch up oil in its backyard, Washington appears to be asleep.

Somalia

Famine worsens

The United Nations says that tens of thousands are likely to starve in Somalia by the time the famine there ends. In addition to the grim effects of a two-year drought, ongoing violence perpetrated by radical Islamic militias is devastating the region. Islamist militants have cut off emergency food delivery for an estimated 240,000 people in the central and southern regions of Somalia, according to relief workers. Biblical prophecy foretells an increase in famines as one of the signs of Christ’s return. Also watch for instability in Somalia to potentially spill over into Ethiopia.

South Africa

An exodus of whites

As crime and race relations worsen in South Africa, the white population is steadily declining as those of European ancestry leave the country. The South African government estimates that as many as 1 million white South Africans have left their homeland since the end of apartheid in 1994, with many citing a lack of opportunity and crime as their reasons for leaving. According to a recently released report by the South African Institute of Race Relations, the white population will decline another 20 percent by 2040.

The end of apartheid in 1994 was supposed to have marked the dawn of a new age in South Africa, an age of peace and stability, and of freedom and equality for all races. Eighteen years on, South Africa remains a land of prejudice and inequality, the main difference being that today it’s the Caucasian community being maligned and persecuted, often by the politicians and parties who replaced apartheid and promised to create a safer, more stable and equitable social and political system.

Post-apartheid South Africa is a lesson in human nature. The Bible says the human heart is selfish, vain, and constantly self-serving. So many of South Africa’s problems, past and present, have been caused by politicians, political parties and even races seeking to serve their own interests, and the interests of their own party or race, above all else. The solution to South Africa’s racial strife lies not in politics or policies, but rather the transformation of the human heart.

Anglo-America

Should we stay or should we go?

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond is preparing Scotland to hold a referendum on independence, which is leading to clashes between the devolved government in Scotland and the national government in Westminster. Salmond wants to boost his chances of winning the referendum by holding it in 2014 while nationalist emotions are high as Scotland celebrates the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn. British Prime Minister David Cameron wants the referendum to be held within 18 months. According to polls, the majority of Scottish people don’t want independence. Even if Scotland ultimately votes to stay, however, months, if not years, of campaigning and arguing isn’t going to help the unity of the United Kingdom. All kinds of details will have to be decided, such as currency. Originally, Salmond said an independent Scotland would join the euro. These days, joining the euro isn’t that popular, so now he wants to keep the pound. But the euro crisis has just proven that a currency union without political union can’t work. How much would an independent Scotland’s share of the national debt be? What about its share of North Sea oil? These kinds of questions could be expected to be accompanied by combative rhetoric, accusation and even court cases from both sides. In other words, a “No” to independence could still leave the two sides bitter and divided. Just the act of holding a referendum will result in Britain becoming even more split and inward focused over the next few years, when there are serious external challenges to confront.

Over 1 in 3 not in labor force

The percentage of Americans participating in the labor force has dropped to a 30-year low, data released in early February by the U.S. government revealed. Only 63.5 percent of Americans are now employed or actively searching for employment. The other 36.5 percent of Americans are counted as “not in the labor force.” The Chicago Fed has attributed about half of the decline to retiring baby boomers and half of the decline to those who have given up looking for work. Despite what the mainstream media are reporting, America’s unemployment woes are far from over.

Anglicans split over tough issues

The Church of England seems to be about to tear itself to pieces over the divisive issues of homosexual unions and women bishops. Last year, the British government struck down a church ban on holding civil partnership ceremonies for homosexual couples in churches, but the church has told priests they cannot conduct them until the General Synod approves. Around 120 Church of England clergy in the diocese of London have signed a petition demanding that they be allowed to conduct these ceremonies for homosexual couples. The diocese of London is one of the more conservative districts, so support for homosexual unions is likely to grow as the petition spreads to other areas.

A compromise that would have allowed Anglicans opposed to women bishops to be under an alternative male bishop was rejected by the Church of England’s General Synod on February 8. This move could push traditionalist Anglicans toward the Roman Catholic Church. Legislation allowing female bishops in Britain is expected to pass by 2014. As these divisions widen, the Catholic Church is ready to absorb disaffected Anglicans through its personal ordinariate, a structure that allows converting Anglicans to keep many of their old practices.

Budget deficit definitely not cut in half

Shortly after taking office in 2008, President Obama promised to cut the budget deficit in half by the end of his first term. Since the budget deficit for 2009 was $1.2 trillion, the president’s target deficit for 2012 should have been $600 billion. On February 13, the Obama administration officially broke that promise by unveiling a budget with a built-in deficit of $1.3 trillion. This will be the fourth consecutive budget deficit in excess of a trillion dollars. America’s ballooning debt is a ticking time bomb that is about to explode.

Dickens would turn in his grave

Many British children lack a sufficient attention span to read Charles Dickens. Biographer Claire Tomali observed this state of affairs in the run-up to celebrations for the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’s birth on February 7. “Children have very short attention spans because they are being reared on dreadful television programs which are flickering away in the corner,” she said. “Children are not being educated to have prolonged attention spans ….” Meanwhile, in a speech on February 7, Schools Minister Nick Gibb warned that “there are still shadows of Dickens’s world in our own—with literacy problems remaining asymmetric and heavily orientated towards the poorest in our communities.” He warned that “it is gravely concerning to see this country’s young people falling out of love with reading.”

Most divisive president ever

During U.S. President Barack Obama’s third year in office, an average 80 percent of Democrats approved of his job performance, compared to 12 percent of Republicans, according to the Washington Post. That equates to a 68 percent partisan gap, the highest in history for any president’s third year in office. The previous high of 59 percent) came during President George W. Bush’s third year in office. Seven of the 10 most partisan years in terms of presidential job approval have come since 2004, according to Gallup tracking polls. Political division is crippling America.