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ISRAEL STRIKES IRAN – What’s Next?

ISRAEL STRIKES IRAN

As many anticipated, Israel struck back at Iran for their recent drone attack on Israel. While we may hope that the regional war could occur any day now, the last Prophecy Letter I sent out shared some of the Scriptural reasons why I believe we are not quite there yet. The retaliation from Israel could have potentially taken the conflict to the next level, but it seems that this may have been averted (for now). Things currently appear to be going as suggested. Allow me to explain what happened and where we are now.

In the days immediately following Iran’s attack on Israel, Iran gave many grave warnings to Israel should they decide to retaliate. The following headlines aired:

Their talk was clear: if you do anything to us whatsoever, we will attack with immense force. Just a few days later, Israel hit back and the following was reported:

Israel carried out an incredible mission and came right to Iran’s doorstep, striking sites which were right next to their nuclear facilities. But what has been Iran’s response? Are they striking back with all of their might? Not even close. There are two articles I wish to quote from to show Iran’s response. The first is from The Jerusalem Post, bearing the headline: Tehran plays down Israeli attacks, signals no further retaliation. The article explains,

“Tehran played down the incident and indicated it had no plans for retaliation - a response that appeared gauged towards averting region-wide war. The limited scale of the attack and Iran's muted response both appeared to signal a successful effort by diplomats who have been working round the clock to avert all-out war since an Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel last Saturday.

“Iranian media and officials described a small number of explosions, which they said resulted from Iran's air defenses hitting three drones over the city of Isfahan. Notably, they referred to the incident as an attack by "infiltrators," rather than by Israel, obviating the need for retaliation.

“An Iranian official told Reuters there were no plans to respond against Israel for the incident.”

The second article is from Newsweek and includes the response from Iran’s proxies:

“Iran and its Lebanese Hezbollah partners appear to be dismissing the significance of Israel's reported overnight strike on targets inside the country, as the world again waits to see if the regional tit-for-tat attacks escalate into a broader and more destructive showdown.

“‘Iran does not need anyone to defend it; her capabilities are strong,’ a source close to the Tehran-aligned militia… told Newsweek on Friday morning, as reports emerged of multiple Israeli strikes in Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

“When pressed as to whether Hezbollah would join any retaliation by Iran—as its leaders have repeatedly threatened to do—the source responded: ‘Has Israel really done anything? We didn't feel it at all.’

“Tehran appears to be downplaying the significance of the reported attack, according to Reuters. ‘The foreign source of the incident has not been confirmed,’ an unnamed senior Iranian official told the agency. ‘We have not received any external attack, and the discussion leans more towards infiltration than attack.’”

Iran has also explicitly stated that “there’ll be no retaliation” (FOX).

There are two important things to note here:

Firstly, Iran has not admitted that it was Israel that attacked them. While it’s obvious that it was Israel, to publicly admit this brings with it the political responsibility to strike back. However, if they claim that they are “uncertain” of who attacked them and that it was some unknown “infiltrator”, they can claim that they aren’t sure who they’d need to strike back at. They can therefore simply not respond. Iran is deliberately playing dumb so they don’t have to strike back.

Secondly, Iran has down-played the extent of the strike. They claimed that very little damage was done, and that there therefore really isn’t anything to respond to, yet reports from the IDF show that many of Iran’s facilities which are needed to run and protect their nuclear sites were hit. The targets that were hit were indeed important targets. Why would Iran not acknowledge this publicly? Again, because if they admit that they were hurt badly, they are obligated to respond. To do otherwise makes them look weak.

This gets to the real meat of the issue: Iran does not appear ready to escalate the war. Israel’s strike sent a very clear message: we are fully capable of taking out your nuclear facilities. We could have if we wanted to, but we chose not to. Don’t mess with us again. The following analytical pieces point this out if you’d like to read them:

It therefore seems that we might be witnessing the end of this “round” between Israel and Iran. As reported from The Jerusalem Post, “Israel and Iran appeared to step back from the brink of an all-out war…” As much as Israel would like to take out Iran, their top priority right now is to eradicate Hamas. It seems that Israel was contemplating striking Iran harder and potentially striking the nuclear sites, but the US prevented them from doing so. What ended up happening was that Israel agreed to a limited attack on Iran in exchange for US approval of an Israeli operation in Rafah (World Israel News). Israel seems to want to cool things off with Iran for now until Hamas is taken care of.

Even though it seems that this current round between Israel and Iran may be winding down, the significance of what’s happened in the past week cannot be denied. There is now a new playing field. Iran now knows for sure that Israel can strike their nuclear sites if they please. This is certain to factor into their actions should they decide to attack Israel again. It also marks a new landmark in the decades-long conflict as it is the first time the two nations have directly attacked one another instead of acting through in-direct means. It has changed the rules of engagement, and it increases the likelihood of direct attacks in the future.

What are we to make of this in light of Bible prophecy? As suggested before and more thoroughly explained in the previous Prophecy Letter, I believe there is still more that needs to develop before the nations of Psalm 83 come against Jerusalem. It’s important that Iran is not one of these nations, and I therefore conclude that they will not be part of that attack. As there is no prophecy which shows a knock-down, drag-out fight between Israel and Iran, I believe that either a direct fight between those two powers will see little or no damage to Israel, or such a conflict will not take place at all. Again, we can only go by what the Scriptures tell us, and Iran (Persia) is nowhere to be found in Psalm 83 or any other related prophecy. The current trend in events appears to line up with this.

This recent skirmish is not without significance though. It is unquestionably another move of the chess piece as the Lord arranges the nations for battle. Although we mortals may not be able to discern exactly how this will lead to what’s next, we do not need to. We can resolutely stand with what’s written in our Bibles and know that the end described therein will be accomplished.

However, this doesn’t mean that we can’t try to put the puzzle together so long as we don’t do so dogmatically and go beyond what’s written. I can’t help but ponder how this could lead to only the Psalm 83 nations attacking Israel and therefore lead to the fulfillment of that prophecy, so I’ll share my current thoughts:

The missiles and drones which came to Israel were sent from Iran itself. Israel was able to take 99% of them out, and one of the reasons why is due to the fact that Israel had multiple hours of advance notice. Israel was already anticipating an attack from Iran, so they were preparing for any possible scenario. The route Iran chose gave Israel the maximum amount of time to prepare accordingly. When I learned that Iran fired rockets and launched drones, my wife and I were heading into town for dinner. We were able to get to the restaurant, eat, shop around, drive the 45-minute drive home, and the rockets still hadn’t gotten to Israel. I can’t think of anything Iran could have done that would have given Israel more time to prep for it. The distance between the two nations is simply too long to execute a quick strike and have the element of surprise.

Therefore, I wonder if Iran will learn from this mistake and see the necessity of a quick, overwhelming attack like was seen in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Missiles fired from the Psalm 83 entities of Hamas the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Syria will reach Israel must faster than if they were fired from Iran. Perhaps this is why Iran is not mentioned in the prophecy: they see that the most effective campaign against Israel is not waged from Iran itself, but from “the people round about” (Zechariah 12:2). Time will tell. Then again, it’s possible that by the time people read these comments, something big will have happened that makes much of this outdated. You never know!

 

In the Hope of Israel,

Tanner Hawkins

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