Trump Threatens Obliteration, Relents

Good morning!

One could be forgiven for not taking President Trump’s threats seriously.

[BRIEF]

On Saturday evening, he posted on Truth Social, “If Iran doesn’t fully open, without threat, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 hours from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various power plants, starting with the biggest one first!”

Iran’s response was belligerent: If Trump followed through and hit Iranian energy facilities, it would shut down the entire strait. In a high-stakes game of Chicken, Iran has not blinked.

Because of these threats, and Israel saying the war could last several more weeks, oil prices rose, and stocks tumbled in early trading this morning.

But then came the “taco” moment, an acronym people use for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”

At 7:23 a.m. (Eastern Time), the president posted that the U.S. and Iran have had two days of “very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution” of the war. “Based on the tenor and tone of these in-depth, detailed and constructive conversations,” he wrote, all strikes on Iranian infrastructure would stop for five days, “subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions.”

Per state media, Iran’s Foreign Ministry not only denied that these talks were very good, productive, in-depth, detailed and constructive, but that they were happening at all.

Nevertheless, markets embraced the news: Oil prices dropped and stocks surged this morning. Everyone wants to believe all the unpleasantness will just go away. Don’t count on it.

Strange times. The unpredictability of daily events has a certain predictability.

President Trump believes in himself. He trusts in the deal. To this end, he will do whatever it takes, however mercurial—bluster and brimstone one moment, chummy and peaceable the next. He is more willing to flex American military power than any recent president. But he wants quick wins. He believes, against all evidence and all history, that he alone can score them. What matters is the win—for today, for the moment—and let tomorrow sort itself out. This makes for a wild ride.

Markets follow each twitch—up, then down, then left, then right—with the hive-like uniformity of a murmuration of starlings. But the underlying realities—the irreconcilable hostilities, the destroyed energy infrastructure, the geopolitical fractures—cannot be wished away. Consequences lie in wait.

Meanwhile, Iran is utterly unchanging. Its radical Islamist regime cannot and will not be pounded into submission. It knows that talks can be useful, but they are theater, nothing more.

This is why Bible prophecy—unchanging, big picture, future-focused, unerringly accurate—is such an indispensable guide in watching these erratic headlines day to day.

Surprise! Iran’s Missiles Can Reach Europe

Iran launched two missiles at the Diego Garcia military base, deep in the Indian Ocean, well over 2,000 miles from the Iranian coast. One missile was intercepted, and the other malfunctioned. But the launch proves that Iran’s missile technology can reach not only Diego Garcia but, if pointed in the other direction, most of Europe.

It’s a wake-up call to nations that believed themselves out of reach.

• Experts think that Iran used its Khorramshahr-4 medium-range ballistic missile. It has a published range of 1,250 miles, but that calculation assumes a 1.65-ton warhead. Armed with a lighter warhead, it can apparently travel much farther, potentially reaching the United Kingdom.
• Iran has also launched civilian rockets into space, technology that can be repurposed as a missile and also hit all of Europe.

nato has ballistic missile defenses in place to deal with this kind of strike. Europe should be able to cope with a small number of missiles, but it could be overwhelmed if Iran launches too many or if it follows Russia’s example in Ukraine in launching a cyberattack, drones and missiles at the same time.

Iran does not need missiles of this range to attack Israel. The fact that it has developed them at all shows that Europe is also in its crosshairs.

From the start of this war, the Trumpet has warned not to expect the U.S. to completely deal with Iran. Daniel 11:40 describes this Iran-led “king of the south” lashing out against a European “king of the north.” This missile strike proves Iran has been working on that capability.

It is this European power that ultimately deals with Iran. Watch for the next issue of our Trumpet magazine, online Wednesday, to learn more.

Jerusalem Cardinal Condemns Iran War

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, issued a strong statement against invoking God’s name to justify military conflict amid the United States and Israel’s ongoing war against Iran.

“The abuse and manipulation of God’s name to justify this and any other war is the gravest sin we can commit at this time,” he declared in a March 15 webinar hosted by the International Oasis Foundation.

Pizzaballa criticized that “those who wish to bring religion into it exploit the name of God. As believers, we must do everything possible not to leave the discourse to them. We need to say that no, there are no new crusades. If God is present in this war, He is among those who are dying, who are suffering, who are in pain, who are oppressed in various ways, throughout the Middle East.”

These remarks directly countered U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s March 10 Pentagon briefing, in which he quoted Psalm 144 (“Blessed be the Lord, my Rock, Who trains my hands for war, And my fingers for battle”; New King James Version), one of his many such invocations of divine strength and protection for the U.S. and its forces.

Separately, Pope Leo xiv has repeatedly addressed the conflict, describing the war as “atrocious” and calling for an immediate ceasefire.

• In various statements since the U.S. and Israel commenced strikes on Iran on February 28, he has urged all parties to halt the “spiral of violence,” prioritize diplomacy, and recognize that peace cannot be achieved through weapons or threats.

Prominent cardinals in the U.S. have also voiced opposition.

• Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington, D.C., has stated that the U.S. involvement in the war against Iran fails to meet the Catholic Church’s criteria for a just war, including an imminent, verifiable Iranian threat, and is therefore morally illegitimate.

Claims of ignorance of an “imminent threat” from Iran, however, often tie to historical Vatican positions on Zionism. The International Oasis Foundation has warned about the threat of “Shia messianism” in the past and, therefore, is aware of the danger Iran poses to the world. Yet the Roman Catholic Church also opposes Jewish control over Catholic holy sites in the Promised Land.

• During Pope Pius x’s 1904 meeting with Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, he said: “The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people. … We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem, but we could never sanction it.”

This attitude still influences Vatican foreign policy.

• The Vatican refused to recognize the State of Israel until 1993, and to this day it is one of the primary forces weakening it, principally by pushing for a two-state solution.
• If the U.S. and Israel enact regime change in Tehran, Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas would lose their primary sponsor. This would make a two-state solution less likely and is one reason why the Vatican condemns the war and argues for dialogue.

The Vatican in prophecy: In the October 1951 issue of the Plain Truth, the late Herbert W. Armstrong highlighted a prophecy in Daniel 11:45 that the Vatican will move its headquarters to Jerusalem. Regarding the leader of a revived Holy Roman Empire, this verse says: “And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.”

Expect the Catholic Church to continue to oppose U.S. and Israeli efforts to topple the Islamic Republic of Iran, not because the Vatican is anti-war, but because it has its own designs for Jerusalem, which will eventually include military conflict.

IN OTHER NEWS

The Social Democratic Party of Germany lost yesterday’s state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate, a state it held for 35 years. The party lost 9.8 percentage points compared to the last elections five years ago, finishing with only 25.9 percent of the vote, 5 percent behind the Christian Democratic Union and just 6 percent ahead of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, which more than doubled its vote share. The Social Democrats also lost the mayoralty of the Bavarian capital, Munich, having held it almost continuously for 78 years, to the Green Party’s Dominik Krause, the city’s first openly homosexual mayor. The Social Democrats’ losses put pressure on the national government, which is led by the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. This is a harbinger of the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, which says Germany will return to autocratic rule.

Somali state breaks away: Somalia’s South-West state severed ties with the national government on Tuesday, accusing it of attempting to unseat its state president and unfairly use the Constitution to increase federal power. The states of Puntland and Jubaland have broken from the national government as well, and Somaliland rejects it entirely and has declared itself an independent state. These divisions allow the Islamist terrorist group al-Shabaab to operate more freely. Al-Shabaab and other Islamists taking advantage of the situation and dominating Somalia could lead directly to fulfilling a specific Bible prophecy.

Chad deploys troops, orders retaliation: On Wednesday, President Idris Mahamat Déby ordered the Chadian military to totally close the Sudanese border, remain on high alert, and retaliate against any attacks coming from Sudan. Local sources reported the deployment of over 200 military vehicles to the border city of Tiné. The order came after a drone attack on Tiné earlier that day, which killed 17 people and injured 123 civilians attending a funeral. Though the exact motive is unknown, the attack is likely the result of Sudan’s civil war, in which rival factions have battled over the city of Tina, across the border from Tiné, for months. Chad receives financial support from the United Arab Emirates in return for helping supply Sudan’s rebels, but it is much closer to the Sudanese government ethnically. Because of this, both the Sudanese government and the rebels have attacked Chad, and now Déby has made his strongest move yet in reaction. Watch for worsening tensions along this border to contribute to a geopolitical prophecy found in the Psalms.

Terror attack against Jewish ambulances in London: Four ambulances owned by Hatzola Northwest, a Jewish charity that provides free emergency health care to ease the burden of the National Health Service, were firebombed in an apparent terror attack Monday morning. Security cameras captured three suspects setting fire to the vehicles. The Telegraph reports that British police are investigating the attack as being coordinated by Iran. If confirmed, this demonstrates Iran’s long reach—and determination—to attack innocent, uninvolved Jewish communities around the world. Iran’s many state and nonstate attacks on civilians remind the world just how evil this generation’s worst terror-sponsoring regime is.