One of the most strategically sophisticated conflicts of the 21st century has unfolded, marked by advanced intelligence and cyberwarfare, and resulting in the removal of key leaders from one of the world’s most dangerous regimes. Those theocratic bullies seized control of Persia and turned life for its people into a living hell, imprisoning them in an apocalyptic cesspool all in the name of Allah. That dynamic shifted when the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, entered the scene – and they ran.
The reversal of the bullies
Like a scene from Forrest Gump where Jenny shouts, “Run, Forrest, run!” as a bully approached, the roles here were reversed. This time, it was the bullies who ran, driven back by the American president, Donald Trump. He chose moral clarity over the counsel of his top advisers, including his own vice president, who urged caution during a midterm election season.
Despite knowing that influential voices like Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Megyn Kelly would likely oppose and attempt to undermine his decision, he chose to take what he saw as the moral high ground and launched an attack on Iran.
More than 35,000 Persians, many of them young, have reportedly been killed, their only offense being a desire for freedom. Their cries echo the spirit portrayed in Braveheart, when William Wallace famously shouted “Freedom!” Like him, many Persians have sought nothing more than the basic right to live freely.
Freedom and the coming collapse
Will Trump succeed in restoring their country and their freedom? I believe the answer is yes. I was in Berlin on November 9, 1989, when the Fall of the Berlin Wall took place. Few realize it was two-and-a-half years after Ronald Reagan gave his famous “Tear down this wall” speech on June 12, 1987, at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin.
Freedom will indeed come for the Persian people; it is only a matter of time. The devils left in Iran are on life support and will not survive. If they do not flee, the Persian people will hang them on every light post.
An ideological war is being fought. The terrorists killed the body, but the liberal leftists killed the soul. It is a partnership birthed in hell. We are living through the first alt war, a conflict in which the war fought online and the war fought in reality have diverged so completely that they might as well be happening on different planets.
Trump calls it fake news, and he is correct. Meanwhile, the anti-war voices, such as Father Coughlin, are painting a picture of Israel and the Iran war straight out of a Nazi propaganda textbook, fueling and feeding antisemitism.
Origins of the crisis
The mullahs in Iran adhere to Twelver Shi’ism, a belief system centered on the coming of the Mahdi, their messianic figure. In their eschatology, the Mahdi is in occultation and will be ushered in by an apocalypse. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of Iran, told me in New York that when he spoke at the UN a green light appeared. He believed it was the Mahdi, and no one blinked for nearly half an hour.
The architect of this radical Islamic nightmare in Iran was a liberal leftist former US president, Jimmy Carter. He plotted the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. I interviewed over 100 people shortly after it happened who had inside information, and I wrote a book on it, titled Jimmy Carter, the Liberal Left, and World Chaos.
The empress of Iran, Farah Pahlavi, told me that Carter met with her and the Shah during the Persian New Year. He told her husband, “You will release political prisoners, give freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and allow [Ruhollah] Khomeini back into the country. If you do not, you will not get replacement parts for your helicopters or your planes. I can do it under a human rights provision.”
Carter believed Ayatollah Khomeini would be a Gandhi-like figure and bring human rights to Iran. It was the reason the Russians invaded Afghanistan. Carter turned around and started recruiting Muslims and arming them to fight the Russians. Osama bin Laden was one of them. An article I wrote at the time, titled “Blowback,” warned that if those forces succeeded in defeating the Soviets, the long-term consequences could turn against the United States.
Bin Laden believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the result of radical Islam prevailing in Afghanistan, and that there was only one evil empire left to defeat: the United States.
Terrorism, proxies, and the Red Prince
On October 23, 1983, I was with US Marines when Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American service members. It was one of hundreds of attacks carried out against the United States through Iran and its proxies, not including the thousands of American troops blown up in Iraq by Iranian supplied IEDs (improvised explosive devices) or killed by Iranian proxy forces, such as the Mahdi Army in Iraq.
In December 1978, I met with a playboy-looking man at the Hilton Hotel in Beirut. I had been told to ask for “the Red Prince” at the bar. During our conversation, he told me he had married Georgina Rizk, Miss Universe, and that they had spent their honeymoon in Hawaii and at Disneyland in California, claiming the Central Intelligence Agency had paid for it with the approval of George H.W. Bush.
He said he was helping maintain peace by protecting Americans in Beirut while working with the CIA, which in turn was protecting him. In exchange, he claimed, the United States would secure “land for peace.” When I asked whose land, he answered: “Israel’s.”
He also told me he had received numerous warnings from the CIA about attempts by the Mossad to assassinate him. At the time, I had no idea who he really was. Only later did I learn that he was a central figure linking the Palestine Liberation Organization with US intelligence, serving as intelligence chief to Yasser Arafat and as a key planner behind the Munich massacre.
Just a month later, on January 22, 1979, he was assassinated by the Mossad in Operation Wrath of God and was killed by a car bomb.
When I saw his photograph after his death, I realized the man I had met was Ali Hassan Salameh, the man known as the Red Prince.
The business of terrorism
The business of terrorism is being bankrupted by Trump. When the mullahs in Iran chant “Death to America. Death to Israel,” they mean every word.
Shockingly, most of the founders of the terrorist regimes end up billionaires – and the media is complicit in this. Terrorism has become the only “industry” on earth that doesn’t need to buy advertising. The terrorists simply commit an act of terror and the entire world is made aware of the story. Like dialing for dollars in a Jerry Lewis telethon, the money pours into their coffers.
Through ushering in an apocalypse, they believe the entire world will instantly bow its knee to Islam.
On September 23, 1980, I met the former head of Israeli intelligence (Mossad) at the home of Isser Harel. I asked him a question: “Will terrorism ever come to America?”
He replied: “America has the power, but not the will. The terrorists have the will, but not the power. All of that will change in time. You kill a fly and rejoice; we kill one and a hundred come to the funeral. The first terrorist attack will be in New York City on your tallest building.”
The writer has written 120 books and is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. He is the founder of the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, the Ten Boom Museum in Holland, and Churches United with Israel, the largest Christian Zionist network in America, with more than 30 million followers.