The day before Hurricane Gustav slammed into the Gulf Coast three weeks ago, I viewed a satellite image of all the hurricane systems that were taking shape in the Atlantic. It was an ominous picture. Swirling within the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico was Gustav, aiming for New Orleans. Not that far behind was Hannah, although on a different trajectory that would take it northward along the eastern coast of Florida and Georgia. Then, looming large in the distance, off the coast of Africa, was Hurricane Ike.

Viewing the scene through the eye in the sky would have led any observer to this inescapable conclusion: The United States was about to be hit by a succession of powerful storm systems.

That is what happened—and in more ways than one, because hurricanes are not the only waves of disaster that have recently been pounding the United States in swift succession.

In New York this week, Wall Street was rocked by another round of big-time failures, panic-driven merges and federal bailouts. “This has been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression,” economist Mark Gertler told the Wall Street Journalyesterday. “There is no question about it.” Earlier this week, when asked if the economic crisis was the worst of his career, former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan said, “Oh, by far.” Later, he called it a “once-in-a-century type of financial crisis.”

For its part, over the past year, the federal government has extended lifelines totaling $600 billion to some of America’s best-known financial institutions. The most recent bailout of mega-insurer aig had Mark Knoller of cbs wondering, “Who’ll bail out Uncle Sam?”—a question we have been posing for years, most recently here. With a national debt now pushing $10 trillion—well over $50 trillion if you include future liabilities like Social Security and Medicare—and a yearly deficit now in the neighborhood of $400 billion, think about the global impact of America’s soon-coming economic meltdown, once foreign “shareholders” are spooked into taking their investment elsewhere.

This week, the collapsing U.S. banking system managed to steal headlines from Hurricane Ike. During a “normal” week, Ike would have been the featured story at the top of every news cycle. Instead, the monstrous, Texas-sized hurricane, which will end up being one of the most expensive storms in U.S. history, was submerged by the economic tidal wave that hit Wall Street.

As of yesterday, Ike’s death toll was remarkably low, only 50 casualties, given the fact that tens of thousands of residents living along the Texas coast failed to heed repeated warnings to evacuate before the storm hit. It will take weeks, perhaps months, before everyone is accounted for. Search and rescue officials believe many more victims might have been swept into the Gulf by the storm surge. “Exactly how many is anybody’s guess, because authorities had no sure way to track those who defied evacuation orders,” the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.

Whatever the death toll ends up being, as theTrumpet.com has already reported this week, federally declared disasters have steadily increased in recent years. This year, as Joel Hilliker wrote on Wednesday, the federal government is having to bail out a disaster-stricken region, on average, every five days.

Beyond our borders, America is also weathering a number of stormy developments. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates presided over a ceremony that transferred command of U.S. forces in Iraq from Gen. David Petraeus to Gen. Ray Odierno. A cloud of uncertainty, however, still hovers over the next phase of America’s mission in Iraq. For several months now, U.S.-Iraqi negotiations have bogged down over the role America will play in Iraq after the UN mandate expires in December.

We know where this is headed. As we have repeatedly forecasted, Iran will inevitably wrest control of Iraq from the United States. In fact, that process is now well under way.

In Afghanistan, the United States is facing an increasingly violent insurgency and rising casualties. Deaths among U.S. forces in Afghanistan are at the highest level since the Taliban was toppled in 2001. Some military officials have even indicated that America is losing the battle for Afghanistan. The situation on the ground is further complicated by the cross-border attacks from jihadist groups that then seek refuge in neighboring Pakistan.

The crisis in Pakistan is actually a terrorist storm of America’s making. As late as last November, President Bush referred to former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as a “friend” who “has been a strong fighter against extremists and radicals.” Around the same time, Secretary Gates said Pakistan was an “extremely important ally in the war on terror.”

Soon after those comments were made, however, Washington inexplicably arm-twisted Musharraf into relinquishing his military control over Pakistan and demanded that he hold democratic elections in a country that has the second-largest Islamic population in the world. Pakistan’s transition into a civilian democracy began in February, when Musharraf’s parliamentary allies were handed a massive electoral defeat at the ballet box. As if completely out of touch with reality, President Bush called the election outcome a “victory in the war on terror.” He then expressed hope that Islamabad’s new government would continue to be America’s “friend” and partner in fighting terrorism.

Those hopes were dashed within months. Musharraf resigned in August. In July, the New York Times recently reported, President Bush secretly permitted American forces to carry out counterinsurgency attacks inside Pakistan without prior approval from the Pakistani government. Islamabad’s new government responded to the news last week by ordering its army to shoot at American forces if they were spotted crossing into Pakistan.

So in a matter of months, Pakistan went from being an important American ally, fighting against terror, to being a central front in the war on terror! As Sky News reported on Tuesday, “The two countries are squaring up to each other in a way considered unthinkable just a few months ago.”

All of this, you should know, is playing out exactly the way we said it would happen last November.

Then there’s Tehran’s involvement. Although not often acknowledged in Washington, jihadists and weaponry are also pouring into Afghanistan from the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to a bbc investigation, the details of which were revealed this week, Taliban members have confirmed that weapons smuggled into Afghanistan from Iran have been especially effective in their fight against American soldiers.

The report also states that Britain’s ambassador in Afghanistan has accused Iran of supplying the Taliban with arms. “It’s a very dangerous game for Iran, a Shia state, to be supplying Sunni extremists, like the Taliban,” said Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles.

This alliance flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which teaches us that Sunni and Shia don’t mix. Yet, even the 9/11 Commission concluded in 2004 that there was “strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers.”

When it comes to knocking out the United States, annihilating Israel and pushing hard against the European king of the north, Iran is quite happy to form strategic alliances with Sunni jihadist organizations.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is the head of the terrorist snake—the biblically prophesied king of the south. It’s the next Category 5 hurricane ominously looming on the horizon.

The Point of No Return

During an editorial meeting on July 15, my father told our writers that as prophesied events pound this world with ever-increasing intensity, our warning message needs to get stronger. He said that our nations—the United States, the British peoples and biblical Judah, called “Israel” today—have collectively reached the point of no return.

My father’s comments were later converted into an article that appeared in the September issue of the Trumpet magazine. Notice what he wrote (emphasis mine):

If you study the biblical prophets, there came a point when their warnings no longer spoke about repentance. They were simply bold statements of fact—spoken as a witness against those peoples who had rejected God. I strongly believe our nations today … have passed the point of no return. The hope of their turning to God during this age has been eclipsed by the magnitude of their rebellion! … The increase in catastrophic events shows God strengthening His correction.

And since he made those comments, the pace of catastrophic events has increased all the more. If you’ve been following theTrumpet.com over the past two months, you know that’s true!

“Have you noticed the dramatic increase in catastrophic events lately?” my father asked in the article quoted above. He highlighted two disasters in particular—the economic collapse and catastrophic weather. Regarding the bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac earlier this year, he wrote, “The government is bailing them out—but is already so deeply indebted that it needs to be bailed out!”

“Meanwhile,” he wrote later, “within the U.S. and around the world we see an acceleration in weather disasters.” And look at what’s happened since he wrote that—even in the past week.

All signs indicate that we are now very near to the return of Jesus Christ to this Earth as King of kings! For much more about what God has prophesied for the latter-day descendants of ancient Israel, read Herbert W. Armstrong’s book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.