The Exasperating State of the Iran War

In February, the United States and Israel struck Iran with what officials called devastating, surgical force. By June, Washington was already circling back with a memorandum of understanding—a peace deal. That deal expired this week. Nothing replaced it.

[BRIEF]

This is a good opportunity to step back and acknowledge how this has not gone the way President Trump said it would.

• The memorandum of understanding, we were told, was “a very strong deal” that all involved were “very happy” with. Negotiating a more permanent arrangement would be no trouble, he said, but, “If it doesn’t get done in 60 days, that’s all right, we go back to bombing.”

Sixty days have elapsed—15 or 20 of which were spent firing on one another rather than ceasing fire—no deal has been made, and the United States doesn’t look like it’s “back to bombing.”

Listen to how Iran’s own military commander, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Reza Naqdi, described the war—not to his own state media, but to pbs News Hour last week:

The longer this war lasts, the more experience we gain. We had never seen a real war to gain real experience to learn how to fight with America. … We have also seen how the American military is weaker than what we perceived.

President Trump told Americans that Iran would unconditionally surrender. Instead, six months later, the Americans are the ones offering concessions, extending timelines, and absorbing insults on television.

• Meanwhile, the threats to “go back to bombing” are left empty, and new threats are being made to bomb Oman, considered an ally, if it gets in the way of a deal nobody can define, much less implement and enforce.

Something is deeply wrong here. A nation with the most powerful military in human history cannot win a victory over a radical terror state with a third of its population, a 50th of its military budget and about 1/100th of its gdp.

• One day the president sounds fierce and deadly; the next he pleads for dialogue, and the world is left to try to keep up with the rhetoric—or just wait and see what actually happens.

What has actually happened so far is this: The radical, oppressive, terroristic Iranian regime has not only survived ongoing direct political, economic and military attack by the United States and Israel, but has grown more aggressive.

Herbert W. Armstrong warned decades ago that America had “won its last war,” not because it lacked weapons or wealth but because it lacked will.

• Every conflict since World War ii has resolved the same way: expenditure of tremendous force, followed by a squandered peace. Iran’s leaders know this pattern. That is precisely why they mock it openly, on camera, without fear.

God warned the ancient Israelites and their descendants—the modern Americans, Jews and British—that we would spend our strength in vain:

“The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them.”
—Deuteronomy 28:25

America has lost its fear of God and is now discovering, one failed deadline at a time, that it has lost its power to compel even its worst enemies to fear it. The talking will continue. The taunting will continue. And unless something changes that is much more fundamental than missile stocks and negotiation strategies, so will the losing.

Iran-Backed Iraqi Militia Refuses to Stand Down

Iraq’s prime minister has pledged to disband Iran’s Shiite militias by September 30, the deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. But one Iraqi Shiite militia sponsored by Iran stated on Wednesday that it would not disarm unless the United States and Turkey completely withdraw and the Peshmerga, a Kurdish militia, disbands.

It’s a signal of Iran’s enduring influence in Iraq, which aligns with biblical prophecy.

• The militia, Kata’ib Hezbollah, is affiliated with but separate from Lebanese Hezbollah. Along with other Shiite militias that constitute the Popular Mobilization Forces, it was grafted into the Iraqi military in 2016.
• The Iraqi government has sought to control pmf groups, with mixed results. After Hamas, another Iranian proxy, massacred Israeli civilians in 2023, pmf militia members fought the U.S. in Iraq, and the Iraqi government could not stop the fighting. During the current war between the U.S. and Israel against Iran, pmf fighters also attacked Saudi Arabia, an American ally.

Since 1994, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has said that Iran would get control of Iraq. He made the same prediction in 2003, after the U.S. invaded the country.

Events like Kata’ib Hezbollah’s declaration show Iran and its proxies aren’t going anywhere. They have control over the country. Our February 2024 issue states:

Iraq could have taken many other directions since 1994. It could have remained under the totalitarian fist of Saddam Hussein or a handpicked successor. The United States could have stayed in Iraq long term, as it has in South Korea or Western Europe. Iraq’s oil wealth could have transformed it into a prosperous country that wouldn’t need or want Iran.

Instead, Iraq has fallen to Iran, just as Mr. Flurry predicted nearly 30 years ago.

To follow the history of Mr. Flurry’s forecasts on Iraq and Iran over the past three decades, read The King of the South.

Germany Opens New Drone Research Center

Yesterday the German Aerospace Center opened its Drone Security Technology Center in Saxony-Anhalt, a facility for researching, developing and testing military drones.

• The opening comes just two weeks after an explosives-carrying drone was found at Leipzig-Halle airport, amid fears of Russian hybrid warfare.

Hybrid threats are pushing Germany to rapidly advance its capacity for drone defense, including drone detection, jamming and hijacking.

• The center’s goal is to bring these new capabilities into “application much faster than usual,” according to Olaf Heintze, head of the Security and Defense Program Directorate at the German Aerospace Center.

Big picture: Spiegel reported on Tuesday that there were 116 drone incidents at German airports last year, many of them believed to be linked to Russia. Germany fears Russian drones.

• In March, the government amended air security laws to allow the military to shoot down drones.

Germany doesn’t just fear Russian drone incursions. It fears the possibility of a full-scale war against Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

• This week, the Telegraph reported that Russia has built or expanded at least 10 drone border-area military bases “in striking distance of nato.”

Daniel 11:44 prophesies that “tidings out of the east” will scare Germany into striking Russia preemptively. With the opening of this new center, we can see that fear is already pushing Germany into bringing new defense technologies into “application much faster than usual.”

The Bible also warns that before Germany takes military action against Russia, it will take military action against the West.

IN OTHER NEWS

Japan, UK, China pull back from U.S. debt: Major foreign holders of U.S. Treasury debt reduced their holdings in June. Japan, the largest foreign holder, cut its position by 2.3 percent, from $1.14 trillion to $1.12 trillion, while the United Kingdom reduced its holdings by 1 percent, from $948.6 billion to $939.9 billion. China reduced its holdings from $659.3 billion to $633.4 billion, the lowest level since 2008. China has cut its U.S. debt holdings by more than 13 percent over the past year. If foreign investors continue to lose their appetite for U.S. treasuries, the already heavily indebted federal government will face higher borrowing costs and, more significantly, more nations will stop using the dollar as a reserve currency, causing its value to plummet.

Top British police officials arrested for corruption: The chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales plus three other senior members were arrested for fraud yesterday. If found guilty, they will become a powerful symbol of Britain being hollowed out from within. A few months ago, Mukund Krishna, the chief executive of the federation, was arrested and later sacked over allegations of corruption. Once upon a time, the English “bobby” embodied the epitome of incorruptible, fair law enforcement. This scandal, added to the Henry Nowak arrest, added to arrests for harmless social media posts, added to looking the other way on migrant crime, added to Rotherham and other stark police injustices, reveals that British police leadership is rotten.

Ex-Fauci adviser admits he hid COVID records: Yesterday, Dr. David Morens, a former senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci, pleaded guilty to conspiring to evade federal public records laws. Morens used personal e-mail accounts rather than government systems to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests regarding Fauci-linked coronavirus research grants and discussions of covid-19 origin. Fauci meanwhile led the government’s effort to place American citizens under an unprecedented lockdown. The felony charge carries a maximum five-year prison sentence: A U.S. district judge will sentence Morens on November 12 in Greenbelt, Maryland. Dr. Fauci has not been charged in connection with this case or any other, as he enjoys a blanket preemptive pardon signed by Joe Biden, but the plea gives Americans another glimpse at what government officials were doing to hide the truth about covid-19 and to institute unprecedented, widespread and deadly lockdowns and mass injections.