President Barack Obama isn’t doing enough to keep nuclear weapons out of Iran’s hands, and Israel may have to launch a military strike as a result, says author Joel Rosenberg, former political consultant to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Rosenberg, a New York Times best-selling author, recently published “Twelfth Imam,” a novel.
“It’s not simply dangerous that Iran’s leaders have publicly called for the annihilation of Israel and the U.S. and that Iran is rapidly pursuing nuclear weapons,” he tells Newsmax.TV.
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“The problem in Iran is that the regime has an end-of-time theology. It believes we are living in the end of days. It expects the Islamic messiah, Twelfth Imam, to come at any moment.”
Furthermore, the regime believes that annihilating Israel — “the little Satan” — and the United States — “the big Satan” — is the way to hasten the Twelfth Imam’s arrival. “This is what’s so dangerous: nuclear weapons soon in the hands of people who believe it’s their God-given mission to end Judeo-Christian civilization as we know it,” Rosenberg says.
“We’re rapidly approaching the point where this could become all too real.”
Netanyahu has said that American economic sanctions against Iran aren’t working and that the United States must put a credible military threat on the table, Rosenberg notes. But he doesn’t think Netanyahu is convinced that the Obama administration will take decisive action.
“I think the prime minister is laying the groundwork for sometime next year that if the world and U.S. don’t take decisive action, Israel may have to take action itself. I pray for peace but think we have to be prepared for war.”
Polls show that 65 percent of Americans support a pre-emptive Israeli strike if nothing else works, Rosenberg points out. “Netanyahu is trying every other means short of war, including covert action. But we’re running out of time. I don’t see the Obama administration taking the action necessary to keep Iran from getting the bomb.”
The American public also is skeptical, he says. The latest poll shows that 79 percent of Americans believe Obama’s policy toward Iran won’t stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons. “Americans feel President Obama has been soft on radical Islam and is cutting Israel loose,” Rosenberg says.
Although the Republican takeover of the House brings more support for Israel, “the foreign policy of the U.S. is controlled by the president,” he notes. “And this president is desperate for a deal between Israel and Palestine.”
But Palestinians aren’t interested in negotiations. “Talks have stalled because the Palestinian leadership refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. They believe President Obama will force Israel to cut a deal against Israel’s will,” Rosenberg says. “I don’t think they’re right.”
Rosenberg doesn’t favor a state of Palestine. “The Palestinians deserve autonomy to run their own lives,” he says. “But they don’t have the right to have sovereign relations with radical Muslims in Iran and Syria. The danger is a sovereign state could make alliances with radicals in other countries that would threaten Israel’s existence.”
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