Monthly Archives: October 2011

FOX NEWS CHANNEL INTERVIEW ON IRAN TERROR PLOT, 2012 RACE, AND “THE TEHRAN INITIATIVE”: Transcript & Video

October 17, 2011 By in Epicenter

>> Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held hostage by Hamas for years, set for release on Tuesday….IDF on high alert….please pray for Gilad and the Shalit family.

On Sunday afternoon, I was interviewed on the Fox News Channel about the Iran terror plot, the 2012 presidential campaign and the lack of a serious plan by the President or the GOP candidates to neutralize Iran, and the launch of The Tehran Initiative on Tuesday.  To watch the video, please click here. It was posted online by the left-wing Media Matters website. Below is the transcript of the interview.

(At the moment we don’t have the audio or a transcript of my interview Friday on the Sean Hannity radio show; if we can get that, I’ll be sure to post it. Thanks to all of you who have emailed requests for them.)

Shannon Bream, Fox News Channel: The Iranian plot FBI Director Mueller has talked about this week also reads like the pages of a soon-to-be-released novel by an author that some are called a ‘Modern day Nostradamus.’ Joel Rosenberg’s new book, The Tehran Initiative, bears an eerie, uncanny resemblance to current events. And it isn’t the first time he has written fiction that’s foreshadowed the future. It’s a special gift I think he has. He joins us now. Joel thanks for coming in.

Joel C. Rosenberg, author of The Tehran Initiative: Good to be with you.

Bream: Of course this week we’re talking about the foiled Iranian plot. There are some skeptics who wonder just how far up it went in the Iranian leadership, the Quds Force, whether leaders there knew about it, whether this is a legitimate plot at all. What do you make of it? Were you surprised by it at all, this plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador here in D.C.?

Rosenberg: Well, like everybody, I want to see all the details, all the evidence, if it’s true. But right now, you know, time will tell in terms of this specific plot. But the problem is that Iran declared war on the United States in 1979, declared war on Israel in 1979 under Ayatollah Khomeini. They started taking hostages. They’ve killed Americans in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan. Now, if this plot turns out to be credible — combined with the nuclear weapons development strategy — you basically have a declared war from an enemy with virtually no response for all these years. I brought in with me an article from April 2010 from the New York Times — then-Defense Secretary Robert “Gates Says U.S. Lacks A Policy To Thwart Iran.” It details a three-page secret memo saying the Obama administration doesn’t have a plan. Well, eighteen months later the problem is, what is that plan to neutralize the Iranian threat, to degrade their capability to threaten us, either with terrorism or nuclear war? The problem is we have a president currently who doesn’t have a plan, and none of the Republican presidential candidates have laid out a serious, credible plan either. And look, I’m writing a fictional novel aboutan actual — well, actually a fictional — terrorist attack on the United States by Iran in New York, not Washington, and Iran getting nuclear weapons, and the pressuring Israel not to launch a first strike. But we’re not living in a fictional world. We’re living in a world where we neither have a president nor — currently — a Republican presidential campaign structure that has given us a plan.

Bream: How important do you think it is that the candidates — the GOP candidates — be asked about this at the next debate, and what their plan would be, and whether or not they would tie Israel’s hands. Because there are many candidates within the GOP field who are strong supporters of Israel, but do you think they would allow Israel to act on its own behalf if that nation felt it were necessary for survival?

Rosenberg: I’d like to see that. And that’s the thing — I mean, there’s no question that jobs, the economy, bold tax reform, these are all critical issues, and the candidates — to varying degrees — are addressing them. But in terms of foreign policy, and the number one threat to U.S. national security — Iran — really nobody has really laid out a comprehensive, detailed plan to neutralize the Iranian threat. We don’t really know if the candidates would launch a preemptive military strike, or would seriously consider it as an American president. Nor do we know whether they would support Israel in such a strike either. And yet, in the novel — The Tehran Initiative — I have an American president, fictional, sending a senior American official to Israel to pressure Israel not to launch a preemptive strike, even though they are facing a Second Holocaust. Now, just a few weeks ago, President Obama sent Secretary of Defense Panetta to Israel to do that very thing. So, unfortunately, the issues I’m dealing with fictionally, they are playing out right now. And I think we need to hear from the President and from the Republican candidates — walk us through a plan, because this is a very, very serious issue.

Bream: It is. And your books will keep folks up all night.  

IRAN DECLARED WAR ON THE U.S. & ISRAEL IN 1979: When will we respond decisively?

October 14, 2011 By in Epicenter
>> UPDATE: Joel appeared on the Sean Hannity Radio Show on Friday at 5:30pm eastern to discuss the Iran terror threat and The Tehran Initiative. He will also appear on the Fox News Channel at 12:40pm eastern on Sunday. Details on other programs coming.
 
The Islamic Republic of Iran declared war on the United States and Israel in 1979. They have since taken Americans hostage. They have murdered Americans in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Afghanistan. They have funded Hezbollah, Hamas, the PLO and other terrorist organizations that have murdered Israelis. They are developing nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. Now, it appears the Iranian government has tried to launch a deadly terrorist operation on American soil — in our nation’s capital. Yet Iran has never paid a real price for any of these acts of war.
 
When will we wake up to this growing threat and respond decisively and neutralize the Iranian threat?
 
In April 2010, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration had no comprehensive, decisive strategy to neutralize the Iran threat. The story began by stating: “Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document.” Unfortunately, eighteen months later, it is clear President Obama and his advisor still have no comprehensive, decisive strategy.
 
My new novel, The Tehran Initiative, is a political thriller that takes readers inside this Iranian threat and imagines a series of worst case scenarios — an Iranian terror plot unleashed inside the U.S.; Iranian radicals building nuclear weapons and preparing to launch them; an American President unwilling to move decisively to neutralize Iran; and an American government pressuring Israel not to defend the Jewish people from a Second Holocaust. The book is fiction. But it is based on facts.
 
Lest there be any doubt about Iranian intentions, consider the following statements made by their leaders over the years:
  •  “The governments of the world should know that . . . Islam will be victorious in all the countries of the world, and Islam and the teachings of the Qur’an will prevail all over the world.” —Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in January 1979
  • “We must strive to export our Revolution throughout the world.” —Ayatollah Khomeini on March 21, 1980
  • “We don’t shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world. . . . We must believe in the fact that Islam is not confined to geographical borders, ethnic groups, and nations. It’s a universal ideology that leads the world to justice. . . . We must prepare ourselves to rule the world.” —Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on January 5, 2006

Restoring the caliphate and building an Islamic empire that literally encompasses the entire globe is the expressed goal of the Radicals, be they Shia Muslims or Sunnis. It has been a goal since the seventh century, when Muhammad, whom Muslims revere as a prophet, walked the earth. But whereas once this notion was a dream—desired but far off—many Radicals now believe it is actually achievable as history, in their view, draws to a conclusion, the end of the world approaches, and their so-called messiah — The Twelfth Imam — arrives.

In 1979, there were three countries that, in the eyes of the Radicals, stood in the way of world domination: the Soviet Union, Israel, and the United States. The collapse of the U.S.S.R. on Christmas Day 1991 dramatically emboldened the Radicals. “One down, two to go,” they reasoned, and Israel was widely perceived as the next target.

  •  “It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region.” —Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in January 2001
  • “One bomb is enough to destroy Israel. . . . In due time the Islamic world will have a military nuclear device.” —Iranian president Rafsanjani in December 2001
  • “Rafsanjani Says Muslims Should Use Nuclear Weapon against Israel.” —Headline from the Iran Press Service, December 14, 2001
  • “Israel must be wiped off the map.” —Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on October 26, 2005

Israel, however, is not the ultimate objective. In the eyes of most top Radical leaders, the Jewish state is the “Little Satan.” The United States is considered the “Great Satan” and thus the most desired target.

  •  “God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism.” —Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on October 26, 2005
  • “Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come, and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started.” —Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on June 2, 2008, marking the 19th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini
  • “Get ready for a world minus the U.S.” —Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on June 4, 2008

Note carefully the language of the leading Iranian Radicals. At this point in the Revolution—post-1979, and post–9/11—the jihadists do not simply seek to frighten or terrorize the American people; they seek to utterly destroy them. They do not simply seek to repudiate or humiliate; they seek to annihilate.

Does President Obama have a clear and compelling plan to neutralize the Iranian threat? Do any of the GOP presidential candidates? None of us want another war. So if there is a multi-faceted plan we can take short of war, now is the time to hear it, approve it, and execute it. It is time for real leaders to step up and chart an effective way forward, before it is too late.

IS IT TIME FOR THE U.S. TO STRIKE IRAN?

October 13, 2011 By in Epicenter

UPDATED: President Obama told reporters Thursday that Iran “will pay a price” for assassination plot. What price? How serious will this administration be about neutralizing the Iranian threat?

“We’re going to continue…to mobilize the international community to make sure that Iran is further and further isolated and pays a price for this kind of behavior,” the President said. That sounds like the White House is contemplating diplomatic and economic “prices,” not military.

But an important question needs to be asked at this point. Has the time come for the U.S. to launch pre-emptive military strikes on Iran’s terrorist infrastructure and nuclear facilities? The time has come for President Obama and each of the Republican presidential candidates to explain what concrete and decisive steps they will take to safeguard U.S. national security from the growing threat posed by the mullahs in Tehran.

Iran’s monstrous plot to kill Americans, assassinate the Saudi ambassador in our nation’s capital, and blow up the Saudi and Israeli embassies, was an act of war. FBI Director Robert Mueller told reporters: “Though it reads like the pages of a Hollywood script, the impact would have been very real and many lives would have been lost.”

Indeed, it reads like the pages of my new political thriller, The Tehran Initiative (Tyndale House Publishers), which opens with a deadly Iranian terrorist attack on Arab, Israeli, and American leaders in New York City, and an Iranian regime preparing to use nuclear warheads against U.S. and Israeli targets.

Fortunately, unlike in my novel, U.S. federal agents foiled the real-life plot. Unfortunately, it’s not clear Iran’s leadership is going to pay a price for such evil. The evidence suggests the orders and money came from high-ranking officials in Iran. Yet senior Pentagon officials have already signaled that…. [to read the rest of the column, please click here]

KEY HEADLINES TO TRACK:

IRANIAN TERROR PLOT IN U.S. THWARTED BY FBI: Plot “reads like the pages of a Hollywood script,” says FBI Director

October 11, 2011 By in Epicenter

>> Israel, Hamas reach Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal, officials say

UPDATED: In a story that seems ripped from the pages of my forthcoming novel, The Tehran Initiative, the U.S. government has announced that an Iranian terrorist plot against the United States was foiled by federal agents.

“FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a ‘significant terrorist act in the United States’ tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today. The officials said the plot included the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, with a bomb and subsequent bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C. Bombings of the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, were also discussed, according to the U.S. officials.”

FBI Director Robert Mueller told reporters: “Though it reads like the pages of a Hollywood script, the impact would have been very real and many lives would have been lost.”

Thank God the FBI was able to thwart this Iranian plot to attack Americans, Arabs and Israelis in Washington, D.C. — but imagine how much more serious this scenario would have been if Iran had nuclear weapons. The Iranians are feverishly trying to build nuclear weapons. A new U.N. report suggests they are making serious progress. Yet the Obama administration isn’t taking decisive action to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat and now the White House is publicly pressuring Israel not to launch a preemptive military strike against Iran.

Latest headlines:

The GOP candidates should be pressed to answer the following questions:What would you do to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them? Would you seriously consider a U.S. preemptive strike against Iran, or support an Israeli first strike, if economic sanctions don’t work? The American people have a right to know how we will be protected from the growing Iranian threat. President Obama also needs to be pressed to give the American people more details on how he is going to stop the Iranian threat, but the dangers are growing.

A new bipartisan poll by Democrat Pat Caddell and Republican John McLaughlin released last month found that 63% of Americans regard Iran as the top threat facing the U.S. (ahead of China and North Korea), and 80% believe if Iran gets nuclear weapons they will give them to terrorists to attack the U.S. and Israel.

This is precisely the point I’m trying to making in my forthcoming political thriller, The Tehran Initative. The Iranian nuclear threat is growing, and Washington isn’t doing nearly enough to protect us. The novel opens with an Iranian terrorist attack on American, Arab and Israeli leaders in the U.S.. The plot then leads to an American White House trying to pressure Israel not to launch a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. But while my novel is fiction, the premise is all too real at the moment.

Please continue to pray for the safety of our country. Let us thank the Lord that the FBI thwarted this Iranian plot, and let’s press our leaders to tell us exactly what they are going to do to neutralize the Iranian terror and nuclear threats.  Developing….

ASK THE CANDIDATES: “HOW WOULD YOU STOP IRAN FROM OBTAINING NUCLEAR WEAPONS?”

October 10, 2011 By in Epicenter

As tensions increase in the Middle East, each of the Republican candidates for President need to be pressed to clearly and directly answer the following questions:

  1. As President of the United States, what specific actions would you take to stop Iran from obtaining and deploying nuclear weapons?
  2. If you had intelligence that Iran was on the verge of building operational nuclear weapons, would your administration support an Israeli preemptive military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities?
  3. Would you as President seriously consider ordering a preemptive strike by U.S. military forces to neutralize the Iran nuclear threat?

It is increasingly likely that the next American President will have to face such an ominous geopolitical scenario, and the American people need to know where each of the candidates stand. 

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney delivered a foreign policy address in South Carolina last week in which he raised the Iran nuclear threat. “Will Iran be a fully activated nuclear weapons state, threatening its neighbors, dominating the world’s oil supply with a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz?” Romney asked. “In the hands of the ayatollahs, a nuclear Iran is nothing less than an existential threat to Israel. Iran’s suicidal fanatics could blackmail the world.” Romney, however, did not specifically discuss how he would stop Iran.

Former Utah Govenor John Huntsman on Tuesday went further in a foreign policy address in New Hampshire, signaling support for a U.S. preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.  “I cannot live with a nuclear-armed Iran. If you want an example of when I would use American force, it would be that,” Huntsman said.

Businessman Herman Cain has spoken of his support of enhanced missile defenses to blunt an Iranian nuclear threat. “I would make it a priority to upgrade all of our Aegis surface-to-air ballistic missile defense capabilities of all of our warships, all the way around the world,” Cain told the Values Voters Summit in Virginia over the weekend. “Make that a priority, and then say to Ahmadinejad, ‘Make my Day.'” But Cain not addressed the issue with more specificity.

Iran’s leaders continue to espouse apocalyptic beliefs about the End of Days, the coming of the Twelfth Imam, and the rise of an Islamic caliphate, even as they threaten to annihilate Israel (which they call the “Little Satan”) and the United States (which they call the “Great Satan”). A United Nations report in September warned there is “credible evidence” that Iran is making progress towards building operational nuclear weapons. Iran is also developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering such nuclear weapons.

The Israelis are getting anxious, and believe time is running out. “The international community must stop Iran before it’s too late,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his U.N. speech last month. “If Iran is not stopped, we will all face the specter of nuclear terrorism, and the Arab Spring could soon become an Iranian winter….The world around Israel is definitely becoming more dangerous.” 

A senior Israeli general in September warned that Iran is getting closer to the Bomb and that “this raises the likelihood of an all-out, total war, with the possibility of weapons of mass destruction being used.”

Yet the Obama administration consistently refuses even to consider putting a serious military option on the table.

The Obama administration has also decided to apply pressure on Israel not to launch a preemptive strike against Iran, despite the growing threat of a Second Holocaust. “U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta visited Israel [in October] with a clear message from his boss in Washington: The United States opposes any Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities,” reported the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “The United States, he said, is ‘very concerned, and we will work together to do whatever is necessary” to keep Iran from posing ‘a threat to this region.’ But doing so ‘depends on the countries working together,’ he added. He repeated the word ‘together’ several times in this context.”

The current administration policy is, however, out of synch with the American people. A new bi-partisan poll released in September by Democrat Pat Caddell and Republican John McLaughlin found that 63 percent of Americans approve military action against Iran if sanctions do not stop their nuclear program. What’s more, 77 percent of Americans think the Obama administration’s current polices towards stopping Iran’s nuclear program “will fail.”

[In a forthcoming political thriller, The Tehran Initiative (to be released October 18th), a fictional U.S. administration pressures Israel not to launch a preemptive military strike against Iran, and examines what could happen if Israel felt forced to launch such an attack anyway.]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

ON ANNIVERSARY OF THE ’73 YOM KIPPUR WAR, NEW POLL FINDS ISRAELIS FEEL MORE SECURE THAN EVER BEFORE: Yet they are fully aware they face a “gathering storm”

October 7, 2011 By in Epicenter

At sundown, Yom Kippur begins — the Day of Atonement — the holiest day in Judaism. On this day in 1973, Israel received a terrifying surprise attack from her Arab neighbors that nearly destroyed the Jewish State. Israelis vowed never to be caught off guard again. They have taken concrete and expensive steps to improve their security. A new poll just released in Israel suggests those steps are working. Israelis today feel more secure than ever before in their modern history, even as they are fully aware of new threats rising against them that some call a “gathering storm.”

The poll was commissioned by the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharanot. It was analyzed in a story in the New York Times.  Excerpts:

  • On the one hand, “45 percent [of Israelis] said they feared for the survival ofIsraelas a Jewish state.”
  • “Two-thirds of the respondents said there was no chance — ever — of achieving peace with the Palestinians.”
  • “But asked if Israelwas a good place to live, 88 percent said yes.”
  • “As Sima Kadmon, a political columnist at the newspaper [Yediot Aharanot], wrote, ‘In other words, nearly half of the Jewish public lives with a feeling of existential threat, doesn’t believe there will ever be peace, and despite that, is feeling good.’”
  • Still, not everyone in Israel feels secure. The Haaretz newspaper published an editorial with the headline “This new year, the clouds are gathering.”

WASHINGTON WARNS ISRAEL NOT TO LAUNCH PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE AGAINST IRAN

October 5, 2011 By in Epicenter

Fact or fiction?

A senior U.S. administration official flies to Tel Aviv to pressure the Israeli government not to launch a preemptive strike against Iran, despite the rapidly growing nuclear threat posed by the Ayatollah and the mullahs and the increasing possibility that Iran could unleash a Second Holocaust. “Under no circumstances can the president tolerate an Israeli first strike against Iran,” warns the U.S. official. “I am here as a personal representative of the President of the United States to make it unequivocally clear that our government wholly, completely, and utterly opposes a preemptive strike by the State of Israel on the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Fact or fiction? The answer is both.

The paragraph above comes from p. 173 of my forthcoming political thriller, The Tehran Initiative.

But this scenario is no longer fiction. Earlier this week, a senior U.S. official flew to Israel to apply this very same pressure, and do so in a surprisingly high profile manner. “U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta visited Israel Monday with a clear message from his boss in Washington: The United States opposes any Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities,” reported the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “The United States, he said, is ‘very concerned, and we will work together to do whatever is necessary” to keep Iran from posing “a threat to this region.’ But doing so ‘depends on the countries working together,’ he added. He repeated the word ‘together’ several times in this context.”

Panetta’s strong-arm tactics towards Israel was likely overlooked by most Americans, who are currently focused on high unemployment, surging foreclosures, anemic growth, skyrocketing national debt, the 2012 presidential campaign, and final days of the Major League Baseball season. But it was certainly noticed by the people of the Middle East who are growing increasingly concerned about the prospects of a major new regional war.

  • The latest U.N. report found credible evidence that Iran is moving steadily towards building and deploying nuclear weapons.
  • Iran’s leaders continue to espouse apocalyptic beliefs about the End of Days, the coming of the Twelfth Imam, and the rise of an Islamic caliphate, even as they long for the annihilation of Israel (the so-called “Little Satan”) and the United States (the so-called “Great Satan”).
  • Yet while Western diplomats keep talking and talking about restraining the Iranian threat, the world is not taking decisive action to actually stop Iran from getting the Bomb.
  • The Israelis are getting anxious, and believe time is running out. “The international community must stop Iran before it’s too late,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his U.N. speech last month. “If Iran is not stopped, we will all face the specter of nuclear terrorism, and the Arab Spring could soon become an Iranian winter….The world around Israel is definitely becoming more dangerous.”
  • A senior Israeli general in September warned that Iran is getting closer to the Bomb and the “Arab Spring” could turn into a “radical Islamic winter” and that “this raises the likelihood of an all-out, total war, with the possibility of weapons of mass destruction being used.”

Such talk has the region buzzing:

No wonder Israelis feel increasingly isolated on the world stage. Even the U.S. is pressing them not to defend themselves. Israelis, therefore, continue to make preparations for war. They don’t want a war with Iran, but they are steadily coming to the conclusion a preemptive strike might soon become their only option.

I’ve written The Tehran Initiative to imagine the conditions that could lead to such a strike, to imagine why and how Washington might pressure Israel not to launch such a strike, and to imagine how such a strike might unfold. We are hosting “The Gathering Storm” simulcast in churches throughout the U.S. on Saturday, October 22nd to discuss these threats to America, Israel and the Church in more detail, and give practical suggestions on how Christians can serve the Lord at this critical hour. And we are building and expanding the operations of The Joshua Fund to educate and mobilize Christians around the world to bless Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus, and to provide food, clothing, medical supplies and other humanitarian relief to Israelis and Palestinians who are struggling today and to stockpile humanitarian relief for coming wars and natural disasters — and we would be grateful for your prayers and financial support.

>> Please keep praying the Lord spares the life of Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani. He was supposed to be executed today (Wednesday). That hasn’t happened yet, but he’s still at risk and the Iranian government is trumping up new charges against him — click here for more details.

>> To learn more about and support The Joshua Fund’s efforts to educate Christians around the world about God’s love and plan for Israel, and to support our humanitarian relief work to care for needy Israelis and Palestinians, please click here.

>> To pre-order a copy of The Tehran Initiative, my new political thriller that will be released October 18th, please click here

UPCOMING EVENTS WHERE JOEL WILL BE SPEAKING THIS FALL:

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

SYRIA’S ASSAD THREATENS TO ATTACK TEL AVIV WITH “HUNDREDS OF ROCKETS AND MISSILES”: Further evidence of a “gathering storm”

October 4, 2011 By in Epicenter

Further evidence that Israel is facing a “gathering storm” in the Middle East came Tuesday as the dictator of Damascus made one of his most serious threats to date against the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Excerpt from Ynet News: “Syrian President Bashar Assad on Tuesday threatened to set fire to the Middle East, and especially to Israel, if NATO attacks Syria, the Iranian Fars news agency reported. In a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Assad said: ‘If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv.’….According to the Fars news agency, the Syrian president stressed that Damascus will also call on Hezbollah in Lebanon to launch a fierce rocket and missile attack on Israel, one that Israeli intelligence could never imagine.” The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz also reported the story.

The good news: the Jewish state is more secure at the moment than any other time in her 63-year modern history. The bad news: grave threats are rising from Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere in the region.

>> To pre-order a copy of The Tehran Initiative, my new political thriller that will be released October 18th, please click here