The days following the outbreak of the latest war in the Middle East were very revealing. After a clearly aggressive declaration of war by the Iran-supported terrorist group Hezbollah, several Arab states came out and condemned the action.

The Arab League condemned Hezbollah’s attacks as, “unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts,” while King Abdullah ii of Jordan and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt warned that “the region [was] being dragged into ‘adventurism’ that does not serve Arab interests” (New York Sun, July 19). Saudi Arabia condemned the attacks with these words: “A difference should be drawn between legitimate resistance and rash adventures carried out by elements inside the state and those behind them without consultation or coordination with Arab countries. … The kingdom views that it is time that these elements alone bear the full responsibility of these irresponsible acts and should alone shoulder the burden of ending the crisis they have created.”

The real reason was spelled out in an International Herald Tribune column on August 3: Leaders in Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia condemned Hezbollah’s action “at least in part because they saw its boldness as a signal of the growing regional threat from a possibly nuclear-capable Iran. That position, untenable amid public outrage, echoed suspicions voiced for a couple years about a ‘Shiite crescent’ emerging from Iran through the Gulf to Iraq and then on through Syria to Lebanon” (emphasis ours).

The July 17 the LA Times echoed that reasoning: “[T]he divide pits Syria and non-Arab Iran, which are longtime backers of Hezbollah, against Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, whose Sunni Muslim-led governments fear the rise of Islamic militancy and the influence of Iran.”

In the weeks that have since elapsed, we have stopped hearing such criticism of Hezbollah, as Muslim public opinion has swung decisively against Israel and behind the terrorists. However, the underlying reality has not gone away. The existence of an Arab divide, with the Iran-led extremists on one side and more moderate Arabs, generally Sunni, on the other, is very real—and destined to play a significant role in future events.

For Arab countries like Jordan and Saudi Arabia, an Iran-backed Hezbollah is a major threat to their autonomy. So their initial condemnatory statements against Hezbollah are signposts signaling the dividing line.

The sectarian divide has been one of the major obstacles to Iran’s ascendancy in the Middle East. Traditionally, Sunnis and Shiites have been at odds with one another. From Tehran’s vantage point, to rule the Middle East includes solving the sectarian divide. Iran has been trying to shift the debate from what divides Arabs to what unites them. To weld the divide together, Iran appears to be taking a successful two-pronged approach.

First, Iran has cast the Arabs as a victim of Western colonialism. Rather than vilify one another, they vilify America or Israel. Second, by waging a war of terror against America and Israel in Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, Iran has revived a dream of a worldwide empire. In the Israeli-Hezbollah war, Iran has successfully garnered great swaths of popular support from even Sunnis and secular Arabs.

Iran’s success has alarmed the moderate Arab governments. In the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer wrote, “… Sunni al Qaeda is now being challenged by Shiite Iran for primacy in its epic confrontation with the infidel West. With al Qaeda in decline, Iran is on the march. It is intervening through proxies throughout the Arab world—Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Iraq—to subvert modernizing, Western-oriented Arab governments and bring these territories under Iranian hegemony. Its nuclear ambitions would secure these advances and give it an overwhelming preponderance of power over the Arabs and an absolute deterrent against serious counteractions by the United States, Israel or any other rival” (August 4). The Arab regimes understand the threat Iran poses to their autonomy. That is why they were so quick to criticize the launching of the war.

The August 3 International Herald Tribune said, “Extremist Sunnis like al Qaeda have tried to portray their struggle as parallel with Hezbollah’s. But underneath the flood of support some Sunnis worry that their supremacy is threatened for the first time since a Shiite dynasty ruled a large swath of the region between the 10th and 12th centuries, including the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Saladin, the commander who captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders, overthrew the dynasty.”

There is a real and growing divide facing the Middle East. Moderate Arab regimes face the prospect of Iran continuing to motivate the masses toward supporting its goals for the Middle East. If moderate Arab leaders come across as being against Iran pursuing what are perceived to be pan-Islamic goals, their legitimacy in the eyes of their peoples will be tarnished. Civil dissatisfaction with current moderate Arab governments could grow. And Iran has shown itself adept at motivating disgruntled masses. Countries like Egypt, which has fought an internal struggle to quell radicals, is likely to eventually fall into Iran’s hemisphere. Other countries like Algeria, Ethiopia and Somalia could also join the radical camp, as each faces internal pressure. A major Islamic empire, led by Iran, may be just around the corner.

But we should not expect the moderate position to disappear from the scene. In fact, biblical prophecy indicates that this divide would clearly exist and will grow even stronger in the time ahead. (A partial scriptural explanation of this truth is contained in our article “A Mysterious Alliance.”) We can expect the dividing line between these two camps to grow more pronounced, as Iran and its allies come into firmer alignment, growing stronger and more radical—and some Arab countries grow increasingly uneasy over that development. The Bible also indicates that several Arab states will align with a major world superpower that will conclusively deal with Iran—and, astoundingly, that superpower will not be the United States.