The Storm Is Gathering Over Israel

The storm continues to gather over Israel:

Excerpts from the New York Times front-page story on Iran having sufficient data to build the Bomb: "Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired 'sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable' atom bomb. The report by experts in the International Atomic Energy Agencystresses in its introduction that its conclusions are tentative and subject to further confirmation of the evidence, which it says came from intelligence agencies and its own investigations. But the report's conclusions, described by senior European officials, go well beyond the public positions taken by several governments, including the United States. 

Two years ago, American intelligence agencies published a detailed report concluding that Tehran halted its efforts to design a nuclear weapon in 2003. But in recent months, Britain has joined France, Germany and Israel in disputing that conclusion, saying the work has been resumed. A senior American official said last week that the United States was now re-evaluating its 2007 conclusions. The atomic agency's report also presents evidence that beyond improving upon bomb-making information gathered from rogue nuclear experts around the world, Iran has done extensive research and testing on how to fashion the components of a weapon. It does not say how far that work has progressed…

Most dramatically, the report says the agency 'assesses that Iran has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device' based on highly enriched uranium...

If Iran possesses the information and the nuclear material, it's a relatively simple (and fast) matter to create the actual weapon itself.  And, as it just so happens, Iran is now using some upgraded centrifuges to spin out nuclear material even faster:

Iran is planning to use new centrifuges at its recently-disclosed nuclear site that can enrich uranium at double or triple the rate of other centrifuges, Reuters reports, citing an article from an Iranian newspaper.

And what is the IAEA -- the so-called 'watchdog' organization -- doing about this?  Nothing.  Actually, it's worse than nothing, because it continues to assert that Israel is the number one threat to peace in the Middle East.  The IAEA is run by a guy who is totally worthless:

...culpable ... in allowing Iran all the time that it needs to advance its nuclear weapons program, however, is Dr. ElBaradei.

This man should never have been permitted to assume leadership of the IAEA, which has racked up nothing but successive failures under his charge.  Libya surrendered its WMD program – of which the IAEA was entirely oblivious – only after becoming incontinent with fear following the shock and awe of Afghanistan and Iraq.  Libya's capitulation quickly led to the discovery of A. Q. Khan's nuclear black-market, another development about which the IAEA knew diddly squat, and, in North Korea, the IAEA was comprehensively sidelined by the Six-Party Talks.  Perhaps most damning of all, the IAEA had not the slightest inkling of Iran's 20-year history of clandestine nuclear tinkering, until its very public exposure in 2002.

This, of course, is all in addition to ElBaradei's legendary ability to grasp the wrong end of the stick by repeatedly praising Iranian non-cooperation and singling out Israel for criticism, as well as his frequent dispensation of invaluable advice, such as:

We have to cross our fingers that nothing will happen.

In the past, I've read that ElBaradei is suspected of actually being on the take from Iran, though that hasn't been proven.  There's also this:

...we have been led to believe that the level of technological knowledge and sophistication needed to design functioning nuclear weapons is such that they are virtually unattainable to those countries that can be least trusted with them.  Proliferation has already undermined this notion severely.

Now Google "Nth Country Experiment" and shatter the illusion completely.

Try it.  I did, and now I really feel awesome about what's going on.

All this would be bad enough...but there's more.  Joel Rosenberg collects some headlines that indicate a tightening Russian-Iranian-Libyan-Arab alliance that fits in perfectly with Biblical prophecy pointing to the next major war:

• Russia set to boost military-technical ties with Iran
• Iran nuclear enrichment deal in works: Russia
• Russia has 5 arms deals with Libya
• Russia launches new Mideast arms push….in Libya: "Russia's state arms exporter is launching a big drive at the Tripoli air show to sell combat jets, missiles and air-defense systems to Middle Eastern states, including the state-of-the-art S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile that Iran and Syria desperately want to acquire."
• Moscow to host international conference on Sudan October 6-7

One key player that has thus far been pretty quiet is now heading in that direction, as well: Turkey.

Turkey is a beautiful, wonderful and fascinating country.

The Apostle Paul wrote much of the New Testament either in Turkey (then "Asia Minor"), or to the churches located throughout that remarkable land. The Apostle John saw in Turkey the startling vision of the End Times that became the Book of Revelation. The country later became the seat of the Ottoman Islamic empire. Later it became a modern democracy, a NATO ally, a friend of Israel, and the original "Reformer" country.

But something is amiss. Just back from a family vacation abroad, I have come home to find the international news media filled with stories about escalating tensions between Turkey and Israel. Over the past 10 days or so:

• Turkey has canceled a NATO military exercise because Israel was invited to participate
• Turkey has aired a drama on state-run TV portraying an Israeli soldier walking up to a Palestinian child and barbarically shooting her point-blank
• Turkey has made moves to draw closer to Iran and Syria, including choosing to engage in military exercises with Syria instead of Israel
• Turkey has made moves to draw closer to Russia
  

These are troublesome developments on two levels.

First, they indicate that Turkey is not simply turning against Israel but doing so, in part, to curry favor with an emerging Russia-Iranian-Syrian alliance.

Second, these developments are consistent with Bible prophecies found in Ezekiel 38-39 which indicate that in the "last days" Turkey (identified in the prophecies as "Gomer" and part of "Beth Togarmah") will join a Russian-Iranian alliance against Israel. While it remains too early to draw any conclusions on whether the Ezekiel 38-39 prophecies will come to pass in our lifetime, much less soon, it is not to early to be concerned about the pivot Turkey is making away from Israel and toward her enemies, and ours.

Pay attention, pray for peace, prepare for war.

There's my two cents.