Iran’s Other Weapon

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei openly says his nation wants a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. In fact, one of Iran’s long-held goals is to capture that capital city—considered one of the holiest among Muslims.

Intelligence analyst Joseph de Courcy wrote in the Islamic Affairs Analyst several years ago, “Subscribers should be in absolutely no doubt about this. From Iran’s support for subversion in Bahrain, through its improving ties with Egypt, its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Islamist revolutionaries in Khartoum, to its close strategic alliance with Moscow, everything has the same ultimate purpose: the liberation of Jerusalem from under the Zionist yoke.”

Jerusalem is Iran’s ultimate goal. Hezbollah’s purpose is to help Iran reach it.

Founded in 1982 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah has a long history of attacks against Western targets, including the two bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in 1983 and 1984, and the October 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks. Today, Hezbollah is more powerful than ever, according to Fred Burton, the former deputy chief of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service counterterrorism division. In fact, he says this terrorist group’s international capabilities are greater than al Qaeda’s ever were. “[T]hanks to Iran, Hezbollah has far more—and better-trained—operational cadre than al Qaeda ever had. … Iranian state sponsorship provides Hezbollah with a support network that al Qaeda can only dream of,” he wrote (Stratfor, Oct. 31, 2007).

Many now admit that much of al Qaeda’s success lay in its broad connections with sundry state governments. But where al Qaeda is—or was—tied to these nations, Hezbollah is welded to its state backer: Iran, one of the West’s worst enemies.

“Iran is Hezbollah’s real strategic partner,” Dr. Jonathan Spyer, senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center, told the Trumpet recently. Many of the men in charge of Hezbollah have been trained in Iran. They share the Iranians’ radical ideology. Iran funds them. It gives them their weapons. Nothing big happens in Hezbollah’s world without the group first running the plan past Iran’s grand ayatollah, Spyer said. “[U]ltimately Hezbollah is only possible because of Iranian support; Iranian support is key.”

If Iran is attacked, it can use Hezbollah in retaliation. “If there is going to be an attack against Iran, even if the United States isn’t involved, if it’s just done by Israel, I think Iran will try to attack U.S. interests in the region, if not directly, then through their proxies,” Meir Javedanfar, author of The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran, said. “They will want to make Israel a very, very expensive liability for the U.S.”

According to Spyer, Hezbollah used help from the Iranian Embassy for its attack on the Jewish Community Center in Argentina. The Hezbollah-Iran relationship works both ways: Iran can use Hezbollah against the West, and Hezbollah can use state-level assets, including Iranian intelligence and embassies, to increase its power and terror.

Hezbollah’s international abilities are a formidable terrorist weapon Iran can use in its foreign-policy objectives. And its home base and stronghold in Lebanon, just across Israel’s northern border, provides an ideal launching pad for the chief among these objectives: sacking Jerusalem.

Khamenei has made it clear that Hezbollah has an important role in the capture of the capital city. Kayhan, a newspaper with close ties to Khamenei, gloated over Hezbollah’s success in the Second Lebanon War. In its 2006 Quds (Jerusalem) Day edition, it wrote, “In the 33-day war, the Lebanese Hezbollah destroyed at least 50 percent of Israel [and therefore] half the path to the liberation of Jerusalem.” Iran sees Hezbollah’s position in Lebanon as clearing the road to Jerusalem. Hezbollah shares these views; it too wants to “liberate” Jerusalem.

Since the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah has been rebuilding and rearming. After the war, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon was notionally there to prevent that from happening—but unfortunately for Israel, it hasn’t done its job. As a result, right under the UN’s nose, Hezbollah has more than recovered its prewar strength.

Radical Islam lusts after Jerusalem, and it will soon make a grab for it, Bible prophecy indicates. The Bible says that radical Islam will in fact violently conquer half of the city. Jerusalem will be the trigger for the worst war in history.

Yet Jerusalem has a future unlike anywhere else. Though it will soon be the flashpoint for the world’s greatest suffering, soon after it will become the seed of the world’s greatest hope. It will be the location from which Christ will rule the Earth, and eventually, from which God Himself will rule the universe! There is no city on Earth like it.

For a dire warning—and for unparalleled hope in the ultimate future—watch Jerusalem.

For more information, request a free copy of Jerusalem in Prophecy.