Epicenter 2.0

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  341 Compass Direct, “Iranian Convert.” See also Nina Shea, “The Real War on Christmas: Being a Christian Can Be Deadly,” National Review, December 19, 2005. Shea cited Rev. Keith Roderick, an Episcopal priest representing Christian Solidarity International. The Voice of the Martyrs news agency also reported Ahmadinejad’s quote.

  342 Iranian pastor, interview with author, given on condition of anonymity. Name of interviewee and date of interview withheld.

  343 Based on interviews with Iranian pastors and Christians who have been inside Iran in recent years.

  344 Iranian pastor, interview with author, given on condition of anonymity. Name of interviewee and date of interview withheld.

  345 Brother Andrew kept his full name secret during his years of work behind the Iron Curtain and has revealed it to only a few people since.

  346 Brother Andrew, interview with the author, October 2004.

  347 Brian Williams, “Now It Can Be Told: Notes on the Eve of Destruction,” weblog entry, September 5, 2005, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9216831/#050905.

  348 Ibid.

  349 Brian Williams, “The weatherman nobody heard—Robert Ricks predicted Katrina’s wrath; why didn’t more people listen?” NBC Nightly News, September 15, 2005.

  350 Associated Press, “Iran Leader: Israel Will Be Eliminated,” April 14, 2006.

  351 Mortimer B. Zuckerman, “Moscow’s Mad Gamble,” U.S. News & World Report, January 30, 2006.

  352 Georges Sada, Saddam’s Secrets (Brentwood, Tenn.:Integrity Publishers, 2006), 148.

  353 The Four Spiritual Laws is an executive summary of the New Testament’s plan of salvation. It was written in 1965 by Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ. It has become so popular as a clear and simple presentation of this Good News or “gospel” that more than 1.5 billion copies are now in print around the world. It can be read in its entirety at www.greatcom.org/laws/.

  354 “Rice sees bombs and birth pangs,” Aljazeera.net, July 29, 2006.

  355 This leader or “prince” is often referred to by Christians as the “Antichrist.” For the record, I have no idea who the Antichrist is or will be. Moreover, I strongly discourage speculation along these lines. It is not productive in any way, shape, or form for followers of Jesus Christ—especially pastors, Bible teachers, seminary professors, or other Christian leaders—to speculate about what current or emerging world leader may be the Antichrist. Indeed, it is deeply counterproductive. It invites scorn and ridicule on the teaching of prophecy just at a time in history when both Christians and non-Christians need and increasingly want to hear sane, rational, thoughtful voices about the intersection of Bible prophecy and current events. Personally, based in part on 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, I believe the Bible teaches that the Antichrist’s identity will not be revealed until after the Rapture. This is another reason not to guess before the Rapture happens. For a brief definition of the Rapture, please see Epicenter chapter 15.

  356 “Q&A: Rome Conference on Lebanon,” CNN.com, June 26, 2006.

  357 “Transcript of Rome News Conference,” CNN.com, June 26, 2006.

  358 Haro Chakmakjian, “Russian Troops Make First Mideast Foray in Lebanon for Centuries,” Agence France-Presse, September 27, 2006.

  359 Suzan Fraser, “Turkey Agrees to Send Troops to Lebanon,” Associated Press, September 5, 2006.

  360 Werner Sonne, “German Troops to the Middle East?” Jerusalem Post, August 1, 2006.

  361 Ibid.

  362 For more background, see Ulf Gartzke, “Germany Goes to the Middle East,” The Weekly Standard, August 22, 2006. See also Ulf Gartzke, “German Cabinet Reviews Maritime Mission in Lebanon,” The Weekly Standard blog, August 2, 2007.

  363 U.N. Security Council Press Release SC/8181, September 9, 2004.

  364 U.N. Security Council Press Release SC/8808, August 11, 2006.

  365 Associated Press, “UN report: Israel Says Hezbollah’s Arsenal Includes 30,000 Rockets,” March 4, 2008.

  366 Associated Press, “Israel: Hezbollah Used Russian Missiles,” August 18, 2006.

  367 Associated Press, “Peres: Moscow Asked Syria to Explain Why Hezbollah Had Russian Missiles,” September 6, 2006.

  368 Christiane Amanpour, “Czar Putin,” CNN, November 30, 2007.

  369 Anna Politkovskaya, Putin’s Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004), 242.

  370 See Joel C. Rosenberg, “Sharp Critic of Putin Murdered,” joelrosenberg.blogspot.com, weblog, October 8, 2006.

  371 Bob Simon, “Who Killed Alexander Litvinenko?” 60 Minutes, January 7, 2007.

  372 “Litvinenko’s Death Marks a New Kind of Chernobyl—It Threatens Us All,” Daily Mail, November 30, 2006. See also Joel C. Rosenberg, “Assassination Raises Critical Question: Who Is Vladimir Putin?” joelrosenberg.blogspot.com, weblog, November 28, 2006.

  373 Associated Press, “UK: Radioactive Isotope Killed Ex-KGB,” November 25, 2006.

  374 Christian Lowe, “Russia Rejects UK’s Litvinenko Extradition Request,” Reuters, July 5, 2007.

  375 Adi Ignatius, “A Tsar Is Born,” Time, December 4, 2007.

  376 “Supporters Want Putin to Stay in Power,” USA Today, December 5, 2007.

  377 Bloomberg.com, October 1, 2007.

  378 Clifford J. Levy, “Medvedev, Putin’s Chosen Heir, Speaks, and the Plot Thickens in Russia,” International Herald Tribune, December 11, 2007.

  379 Putin quotes cited by Dr. Ariel Cohen, “Russia’s Presidential Elections: Management Reshuffle for ‘Russia Inc.’?” Heritage Foundation WebMemo #1825, February 25, 2008.

  380 Cited by the BBC, February 10, 2007.

  381 Associated Press, “Report: Russia, Iran Helped Syria Bolster Arsenal,” based on reporting from Haaretz, February 22, 2007.

  382 Associated Press, “Russian Died Reporting on Arms Sales to Iran, Syria,” March 7, 2007. Excerpt: “Ivan Safronov, a military affairs writer for the daily Kommersant, died Friday after plunging from a stairwell window between the fourth and fifth stories. Kommersant reported Tuesday that Safronov had told his editors he was working on a story about Russian plans to sell weapons to Iran and Syria via Belarus. The deals, if concluded, could upset the balance of power in the Middle East and strain Russia’s relations with Israel and the United States, which strongly objected to earlier Russian weapons sales to the two countries. Kommersant reported that Safronov, 51, had recently told colleagues he was warned he would face a criminal investigation for possibly releasing state secrets if he reported allegations that Russia had struck a deal to supply Iskander missiles to Syria.”

  383 Associated Press, “Putin Threatens Pullout from Arms Pact; Putin Calls for Moratorium on Russian Participation in Soviet-Era Arms Control Treaty,” April 26, 2007.

  384 Andy McSmith, “Russia Refuses to Extradite Man Accused of Murdering Litvinenko,” The (U.K.) Independent, May 23, 2007.

  385 Demetri Sevastopulo, “Putin Threatens to Target Missiles at Europe,” Financial Times, June 4, 2007.

  386 Associated Press, “Newspaper: Russia Starts Delivery of Advanced Fighter Jets to Syria,” based on reports from the Russian business journal Kommersant, June 19, 2007.

  387 Associated Press, “Russia successfully tests new sea-based missile,” June 28, 2007.

  388 “Putin’s Arctic Invasion: Russia Lays Claim to the North Pole—and All Its Gas, Oil, and Diamonds,” Daily Mail, June 30, 2007.

  389 Yaakov Katz and Herb Keinon, “Reports: Iran to Buy Jets from Russia,” Jerusalem Post, July 30, 2007.

  390 Associated Press, “Putin Suspends Russia’s Participation in Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty,” July 14, 2007.

  391 Ynet News, “Russia Navy to Operate from Syria,” August 6, 2007.

  392 “Russia, China Host Ahmadinejad at Anti-U.S. Security Summit,” Bloomberg.com, August 16, 2007. For more on the Shanghai Cooperation Council—an alliance of countries with a combined population of 1.5 billion people possessing three-fifths of the landmass of Euras
ia—see the organization’s Web site, www.sectsco.org.

  393 “Memorandum of Understanding between SCO Secretariat and CSTO Secretariat,” www.sectsco.org, October 5, 2007 (accessed March 24, 2008).

  394 RIA Novosti, “Use of force in Iran would threaten Central Asia—CSTO,” March 1, 2007.

  395 See Associated Press, “Putin Expected to Visit Belarus to Discuss Plans for Closer Union,” December 6, 2007; RIA Novosti, “Kremlin Denies Putin Will Head Russia-Belarus Union,” December 7, 2007. See also, “Will Putin Swallow Belarus?” Jane’s, September 4, 2002; Associated Press, “Putin Urges Belarus on Union,” September 4, 2002.

  396 “Russia Delivers Nuclear Fuel to Iran,” CNN, December 17, 2007.

  397 “Iran Announces Purchase of Missiles from Russia,” Jerusalem Post, December 26, 2007.

  398 Peter Finn, “Putin Threatens Ukraine on NATO,” Washington Post, February 13, 2008.

  399 Agence France-Presse, “Russia Scraps Libya’s Debts as Putin Visits Tripoli,” April 17, 2008.

  400 Associated Press, “In Iran, Putin warns U.S.,” October 16, 2007.

  401 “Press Conference with the President,” White House transcript, October 17, 2007.

  402 See Charles Krauthammer, “In Iran, Arming For Armageddon,” Washington Post, December 16, 2005; Daniel Pipes, “The Mystical Menace of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,” New York Post, January 10, 2006. For a fuller and more detailed treatment of this topic, see Yossi Melman and Meir Javedanfar, The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran, (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2007).

  403 Y. Mansharof and A. Savyon, “Escalation in the Positions of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—A Special Report,” MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis Series #389, www.memri.org, September 17, 2007.

  404 Ibid.

  405 “President Ahmadinejad Delivers Remarks at Columbia University,” transcript published by the Washington Post, September 24, 2007.

  406 For more, see Joel C. Rosenberg, “Iran Sobered Us Up on New Year’s: A Message of Nuclear Proportions,” National Review Online, January 3, 2007.

  407 Mark Mazzetti, “U.S. Report Says Iran Halted Nuclear Weapons Program in 2003,” International Herald Tribune, December 3, 2007.

  408 Ibid.

  409 See interview with Senator Shelby transcript from the PBS NewsHour, June 3, 1998. See also “CIA Caught off Guard on India Nuclear Test,” CNNInterctive.com, www.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9805/12/india.cia/index.html (accessed March 24, 2008); and “U.S. Intelligence and the Indian Bomb: Documents Show U.S. Intelligence Failed to Warn of India’s Nuclear Tests Despite Tracking Nuclear Weapons Potential Since 1950s,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 187, George Washington University, available online at: www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB187/index.htm (accessed March 24, 2008).

  410 For examples, see Amb. John Bolton, “The Flaws in the Iran Report,” Washington Post, December 6, 2007; and Gerald M. Steinberg, “Decoding the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, www.jcpa.org, December 5, 2007.

  411 “Good and Bad News about Iran,” New York Times editorial, December 5, 2007.

  412 “‘High Confidence’ Games: The CIA’s Flip-Flop on Iran Is Hardly Reassuring,” Wall Street Journal editorial, December 5, 2007.

  413 “Intelligence on Iran,” Washington Post editorial, December 5, 2007.

  414 Agence France-Presse, “Israel PM Warns Iran Can Develop Nuclear Bomb by 2010,” December 11, 2007.

  415 Charles Hurt, “Bush: Beware Iran ‘Nuclear Holocaust,’” New York Post, August 29, 2007.

  416 Sen. John McCain, transcript, NBC’s Meet the Press, April 2, 2006.

  417 Ines Ehrlich, “Modern Day Gog and Magog: Similarities between Ezekiel’s Prophecies, Today’s Mideast Reality Uncanny,” Ynet News, December 10, 2006.

  418 Glenn Beck, “Honest Questions about the End of Days,” transcript, Glenn Beck Show, March 30, 2007.

  419 “Israel Warns World War III May be Biblical War of Gog and Magog,” Arutz Sheva, October 18, 2007.

  420 “Gallup Polls on American Sympathy toward Israel and the Arabs/Palestinians,” Jewish Virtual Library, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/gallup.html (accessed April 20, 2006).

  421 “Reliable Ally Polls,” based on Harris data, Jewish Virtual Library, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/poally.html (accessed April 20, 2006).

  422 Joel C. Rosenberg, “A Vicious, Anti-Semitic Film,” National Review Online, February 25, 2004; and Reuters, “U.S. Envoy: Anti-Semitism in Europe Nearly as Bad as in 1930s,” February 13, 2004.

  423 Robin Shepherd, “In Europe, an Unhealthy Fixation on Israel,” Washington Post, January 30, 2005.

  424 The Rapture is a term used by evangelical Christians. It refers to a moment in the last days when true followers of Jesus Christ will be suddenly snatched up to heaven and thus disappear from the earth, as described in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. It is followed by seven years of terrible judgments known as the Tribulation, the battle of Armageddon, and then the second coming of Christ to reign on earth for one thousand years.

  425 For descriptions of Israel as figs and fig trees, see Jeremiah 24; Hosea 9:10; and Micah 4:1-4.

  426 See Gore Vidal, United States: Essays, 1952-1992 (New York: Broadway Books), 1993, 1001–2, drawing upon an August 1985 article written by Senator James Mills for San Diego Magazine.

  427 Edmund Morris, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (New York: Random, 1999), 835.

  428 Ibid., 632–33.

  429 Michael Reagan, phone conversation with author, June 24, 2005.

  430 See “Al Qaeda’s Poison Gas; The foiled attack in Jordan might have killed thousands,” Wall Street Journal editorial, April 29, 2004; Gethin Chamberlain, “How Al Qaeda plotted to kill 80,000 in Jordan,” The Scotsman, April 29, 2004.

  431 Author interview with General Sada, May 22, 2006.

  432 See “Hotel Blasts Kill Dozens in Jordan,” CNN.com, November 9, 2005; “Jordan Confirms Al-Qaeda behind Hotel Blasts,” CNN.com, November 12, 2005; Nibras Kazimi, “The Islamist Threat to Jordan,” Jerusalem Issue Brief, vol. 5, no. 25, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, May 25, 2006.

  433 Bernard Lewis, responding to a question from the author at an American Enterprise Institute event, June 6, 2006.

  434 This national survey was conducted among 1,000 Christian likely voters between March 16-18, 2008, by McLaughlin & Associates. All interviews were conducted by professional interviewers via telephone. Respondent selection was at random The accuracy of the sample of 1,000 Christian likely voters is within +/- 3.1% at a 95% confidence interval. The survey was paid for by November Communications, Inc., the message strategy company I founded in 2000. The results to nonpartisan questions (that is, questions not pertaining to specifically identified candidates, such as John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama) were then made available for use by the Joshua Fund, in keeping with the fund’s nonprofit, nonpartisan status. Any comments made or implied by me in this book or in public of a partisan nature—or perceived to be partisan—were and are made in my capacity as a private citizen, not in connection to the Joshua Fund.

  435 “Defining Evangelicalism,” Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, Wheaton College, statistics reported online at http://www.wheaton.edu/isae/defining_evangelicalism.html (accessed March 31, 2008).

  436 UPI, “Roman Catholics Total 64 million in U.S.,” June 25, 2007.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am exceedingly grateful for the assistance of so many over the years, more than I could possibly properly acknowledge here. Yet some deserve special thanks with regards to making this book happen.

  Among them: my amazing wife, Lynn; our four wonderful sons; Len and Mary Rosenberg; June Meyers; Edward and Kailea Hunt; Tim and Carolyn Lugbill; Steve and Barb Klemke; Jim and Sharon Supp; Dan and Susan Rebeiz; Wendy and Colin Ligon; Todd and Amy Adkins; Amy Knapp; Cindy Shiblie; John Black; Fred and Sue
Schwein; Bill and Lani Shelton; and our “Connections” family.

  The friends and colleagues throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Russia that we have been honored to know cannot be thanked enough. We are grateful to have been welcomed into their hearts and homes. The life of our family has been deeply and forever blessed by walking with them on this journey.

  Special thanks, too, to Mark Taylor, Ron Beers, Becky Nesbitt, Jan Stob, Jeremy Taylor, Cheryl Kerwin, Andrea Martin, Beverly Rykerd, and the entire Tyndale team; Peter Robbio and the Creative Response Concepts team; Wes Yoder and the Ambassador Agency team; and my agent, Scott Miller, at Trident Media Group.

  Whatever is interesting and helpful in this book is truly a result of their help. Any errors of fact or judgment are mine and mine alone.