The administration announced yesterday that it had made a diplomatic breakthrough in its diplomatic offensive against Iran when Iran accepted a draft agreement to send 80% of its reported stock of uranium to Russia for enrichment.

Iran has enough low-enriched uranium, in theory, to produce one nuclear weapon. If it agrees to the deal, it would be nine to 12 months before the country would have enough uranium to restart a clandestine enrichment program.  So it would stall Iran for one year.

It is being hailed as a ‘breakthrough’ primarily by the United States to try and hand some credibility to the Obama administration’s foreign policy initiative to “extend an open hand if Iran will unclench its fist.”  

So far, it’s been a case of extending an open chin to Iran’s closed fist.   This morning, Iran’s deputy Speaker of Parliament (Iran’s version of Nancy Pelosi) threw a sucker punch at the extended chin. 

Mohammed Reza Bahonar was quoted by Iran’s IRNA state-owned news agency as saying Iran “doesn’t accept the deal” after all. While the administration was quick to point out that Bahonar doesn’t speak officially for the government, the fact remains that nothing is published in IRNA that the government doesn’t want published. 

Iran is simply buying time.   This morning, the Jerusalem Post published a hopeful (and naïve) assessment that Obama recognizes the uranium-transfer deal as a delaying tactic, but speculated that Obama is working a strategy of his own:

“Washington is interested in taking confidence-building steps and in engaging diplomatically with Iran until this option is exhausted. The administration of US President Barack Obama is taking this path to ensure that eventually it will be able to demand extreme measures and supervision of Iran to prevent Teheran from achieving nuclear military capabilities, Jerusalem officials reportedly said.”

It is a matter of almost absolute certainty that the Israeli War Cabinet knows better.   Nobody believes that Obama has the stomach for another war, least of all the Iranians.

The premium intelligence website, Stratfor, is fo recasting what it calls an ‘increasingly likely’ scenario for war in the fourth quarter of this year.  Stratfor bases that assessment in large part on Iran and Russia’s view of Obama:

There is little but diplomacy preventing this conflict from happening. Between the Iraq and Afghan conflicts, the United States has the naval and air assets in the region that would be required for extensive and sustained air strikes against Iran. But both Iran and Russia feel they have the upper hand and both doubt Obama's nerve. Any of the sides could back down -- Obama or Iran could flinch, Russia and the United States could strike a deal on sanctions, Israel could decide that Iran is not so far along in its nuclear program -- to avert a war. 

Assessment:

It is hard to imagine President Barack Hussein Obama standing up to the Russians or the Iranians in solidarity with Israel.  Obama’s worldview was shaped by his self-described mentor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright

(“Them Jews won’t let him talk to me,” Wright complained after the election).  

And there isn’t another nation on earth that will, if America doesn’t.  The Europeans won’t.  I am racking my brain to think of a country whose own national self-interest is sufficient to bring it to Israel’s defense.

There are a few that have limited alliances or treaty agreements, but when it comes to standing with Israel, most would stand a little further back and look the other way.  They’d speak great, swelling words of support, but talk is cheap.

The UN just released a 574-page report on Israel’s incursion into Gaza last year to destroy the Hamas rocket factories and put an end to the rocket barrage raining down on Israeli towns from within the Gaza Strip.

The report was authored by Richard Goldstone, a South African jurist selected by the UN to conduct the investigation. 

Based on the report, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution that singled Israel out for censure -- without making any mention of Hamas’ tactics of hiding near civilian shelters, using human shields, firing on tanks from hospitals, etc.

The US, the Ukraine and four EU members opposed the report.   That’s six countries -- out of one hundred and ninety-two.  And there was essentially no price to be paid for its opposition -- the UN Human Rights Council is essentially powerless.  

Imagine if standing with Israel carried an attending financial or military risk? 

What is noteworthy how perfectly things continue to follow the Bible’s general scenario. The Bible predicted that in the last days, Israel would be a pariah state.  Zechariah predicted she would stand alone against the whole world.   He predicted that the stumbling block to peace would be Jerusalem, the ‘burdensome stone’.

Ezekiel predicted the development of an alliance between Russia and Iran, together with the Islamic Middle East, (including NATO ally Turkey) that would move against Israel in the last days.   Ezekiel 39:12-13 predicts that the rest of the world will do little more than launch a weak diplomatic protest.

The Bible says that all this will come in conjunction with the rise of revived Rome as the preeminent superpower of the last days.  The EU described itself as ‘revived Rome’ in much of its own founding literature.

In any event, what was the Roman Empire 2000 years ago is the rough geographic equivalent to the modern European Union.   The EU is continuing its ascent, while existing superpower America appears to be in the throes of decline.

Bible prophecy for this generation is rich with detail and clarity, starting with the fact that all Bible prophecy for the last days revolves around Israel.  Keep in mind that, at the time the prophets penned those prophecies, Israel did not exist, had not existed for centuries, and would not exist again for millennia!

So, before ANY of it could move forward, the world’s Jews had to first return to the same piece of geography from which they’d been scattered.  Think about that!  Until the Jews returned to their ancestral home, the prophecies for the last days were frozen in place.

They remained frozen in place for century after century after century until the middle of the past century, when for the first time in more than 2500 years, Israel was reborn out of the ashes of the Holocaust.

Really think about this.  All those centuries that came to pass – but the Bible says that once Israel was reborn, everything else to follow would take place within the space of one generation.

One generation!   This generation.  The generation to whom Jesus was speaking when He said, “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:28)

Maranatha!