James F. Gauss, Ph.D.
April 2, 2026
Pre-1979 Iranian flag.
President Donald J. Trump has no deficiency in hubris. He is brash, bold, but also overconfident and braggadocios. On one hand it is laudable for him to take on a defiant world enemy that has been Israel’s and America’s nemesis for almost five decades and to have the courage to tackle the challenge head-on that no other world leader has had the resolve to tackle.
However, the President fails to understand the true nature of this enemy and the evil they are committed to wreck upon, not only Israel and America, but the entire freedom loving world. Trump and his advisors do not seem to understand that what they have embarked upon is not, despite continual reassurances, a winnable war. Iran and its proxies represent the most diabolical of all evils, the demonic evil of true Islamic ideology of world conquest. This conflict is viewed by Iran, not as a regional conflict, but as the apocalyptic world war promised them centuries ago. It will take more than regime change to squash such an end times viewpoint.
President Trump, and maybe his cabinet and advisors, may never publicly admit it, but privately they must be starting to think they have bit off more than they can chew. Oil prices are skyrocketing, and as March 2026 ends, are over $100 per barrel. Some analysts are foreseeing oil reaching $200-250 per barrel before settling down if the war does not end soon. Even at the current price, the rise in oil price is having a major negative impact on the world economies. It is not just with gasoline prices, though, it greatly affects the manufacturing of everything that relies on the energy that oil supplies, but also on all the byproducts that are created from oil and its various refined components.
The cost of everything that is grown, fed or transported will mushroom beyond what many consumers will be able to afford. Inflation will skyrocket and unemployment will rise as it has started in both arenas.
Trump thinks he can negotiate with evil. He only needs to find the right financial trigger to “seal the deal”. With Islam there is no such trigger. True Islamists have one goal and one goal only and it is not economic wellbeing. It is the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of the Jewish people, and as a corollary, the total domination and/or the destruction of the United States whom they view as the Great Satan.
The Pandora’s Box that has been opened in the Middle East has been seething for a long time and has been fomenting the escalating antisemitism in Europe and the whole Western world over the last decade or more and especially since the great influx of Muslims into Western culture.
There is no dispute from this author that Iran and its evil must be stopped before it is too late to eliminate their completion of their goal of apocalyptic destruction by nuclear bombs, rockets or other means. Whether we as Americans acknowledge it or not, the truth is that Iran and its Islamic proxies have been at war with America since this current regime took control in 1979. They will never give up their wicked intent. Certainly, the United States, beyond its humanitarian goal of delivering the Iranian people from the shackles of this despotic regime is justified in a long overdue retaliation for the myriads of attacks by Iran or its proxies against America and its citizens.
Since 1979 the Foundation for Defense of Democracies has catalogued almost 50 incidences of attacks on entities or citizens of the United States. Some of the more notable include the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and 52 American diplomats and citizens were held captive for 444 days.
In April 1983, the Islamic Jihad group (a forerunner and branch of Hezbollah), backed by Iran, carried out a suicide car bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans.
Five months later, in October, Iranian-supported Hezbollah terrorists drove a truck bomb into a U.S. Marine compound in Beirut, killing 220 marines and 21 other service members.
Through the decade of the 1980s there were numerous violent attacks and kidnappings by Iranian proxies, notably Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. One kidnapping included the U.S. CIA Station Chief, William Buckley, in March 1984. He was tortured relentlessly until he was murdered on June 3, 1985.
On August 7, 1998, the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania were attacked by al Qaeda suicide bombers backed by Hezbollah. The almost simultaneous attacks killed 224, including 12 Americans and wounded thousands.
The 9/11 Commission Report (for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on U.S. soil) also implicated Iran for providing travel for some of the al Qaeda terrorists that flew plans into the World Trade Center, killing over 2700 people, with about 1,100 victims still unidentified. The total dead from the WTC and Pentagon attacks and the Shanksville, PA plane crash is estimated to be 2,996, the deadliest terrorist attack in human history.
Since October 2023 to March 2026 there have been over 180 unprovoked attacks on U.S. bases in the Middle East by Iran or its Islamic terrorist agents, wounding over 300 military members, killing 13 and causing around $800 million in damages.
While the primary reason for U.S. military forces to be attacking Iran is in supporting Israel and bringing down the diabolical regime that rules Iran with a cruel fist, America has good reason, albeit delayed, to attack and destroy the current Iranian leadership, military and its worldwide goal of Islamic conquest.
Do our leaders in the Whitehouse, Congress and military understand the hornets nest they have disturbed and what it means for Western society in the years ahead?
Will this be the “New Normal”? During the COVID scare Americans were constantly informed by their government that the COVID experience and its associated disparities would be the “new normal”, whatever that meant. Will the current war in the Middle East create a “new normal” for Americans and all Christians and Jews worldwide?
It has been known for years by U.S. law enforcement that the level of homegrown and immigrated Islamic terrorists and their sympathizers have mushroomed in the United States. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Congressional investigations, during Fiscal Year 2021-2024 alone, hundreds of terrorists on the terrorist watchlist have been apprehended illegally crossing the U.S. northern and southern border. However, this only represents a fraction of the potential insurgents. It does not include those that have possibly entered by other means, such as by air or boat. Nor does it include the estimated millions of “gotaways” during the same period. Nor does it include the millions of Islamists that are already here and imbedded in American communities.
In their 2025 report, Pew Research Center estimated there were 14 million “unauthorized” (that is illegal) immigrants living in the United States in 2023. On September 19, 2024, House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence Chairman August Pfluger (R-TX) and Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement Chairman Clay Higgins (R-LA) reported that under President Joe Biden’s administration over 10.1 million illegals had crossed U.S. borders and nearly 2 million more were listed as “gotaways”.
According to a January 2025 report by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) there have been no significant upticks in jihadist terrorist attacks in America. This does not mean that Islamic terrorists, whether lone wolves or group inspired, have not been active. Between January 1, 1994, and January 1, 2025, CSIS identified 740 terrorist attacks and plots in the U.S. of which 140 were jihadist terror attacks or plots. One of the most recent attacks occurred on New Year’s Day 2025 in New Orleans. On that day, an American citizen from Texas, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, inspired by the Islamic State, drove his truck through a crowded Bourbon Street killing 14 people.
Although the number of active or embedded Islamic terrorists, terrorist groups or Islamic terrorist sympathizers in the United States is impossible to ascertain, the March 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community offers some insight. While many Islamic terrorist groups have experienced a significant military blow to their numbers and impact, they still represent an ever-present potential for resurgence and an external and internal threat to the United States and its citizens worldwide. With increased intelligence and cyber warfare potential these Islamist groups can cause havoc abroad without a physical presence or to brainwash and incite a U.S. resident to carry out their dirty work.
Iran is in a different category of Islamic terrorism. Along with its grandiose vision of an apocalyptic end of the world is a vicious cornered animal facing annihilation. Its demise will not be easy to achieve. The big concern of many is that the United States will pull out prematurely before Iran has lost all capability of future terrorists’ attacks and the current regime has collapsed and is destroyed allowing the Iranian people to be set free for democratic elections and leadership. Iran is not planning on surrendering. The Middle East Monitor reported on March 27, 2026, that Iran is raising a million-man army. This includes the recruitment of boys as young as 12-years old.
Spiritual Warfare. The Shi’a Muslims of Iran believe they are to play an End Times role in the return of their promised messiah or Mahdi, the 12th Imam. This, they believe, will occur via an End Times “military clash of Armageddon proportions between Muslims and Zionist Jews, Trinitarian Christians and the Far Eastern Orientals.”[1]
And it is binding on a town which We destroy that they shall not return. Even when Gog and Magog are let loose and they shall break forth from every elevated place.
And the true promise shall draw nigh, then lo! The eyes of those who disbelieved shall be fixedly open: O woe to us! Surely we were in a state of heedlessness as to this; nay, we were unjust.
Surely you and what you worship besides Allah are the firewood of hell; to it you shall come (Surah 21:95-98).
This Islamic view of the End Times is counter to the Biblical prophecy in Ezekiel 38 and 39. In Ezekiel 38:2, Gog is identified as “the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal.” These regions are believed to be in central Asia and likely represent present-day Russia and its former satellite nations. Gog of the Bible either represents the spiritual forces against God or the Russian leader.
Of Gog, the Lord God says, “I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out, with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords” (Ezekiel 38:4). Verse 5 and 6 identify Persia (Iran), Ethiopia, Libya, Gomer (possibly Germany and Eastern Europe) and Torgarmah (Turkey and Armenia) as those coming against Israel. In Ezekiel 39 God proclaims Israel’s complete victory in this End Times Armageddon over Gog and Magog.
Is the battle that is raging in Iran and the Middle East in the spring of 2026 the battle prophesied in Ezekiel and that the Shi’a Muslims believe in? Time will tell. However, one thing is clear. This conflict has more spiritual consequences than one might believe.
Apostle Paul made it obvious when it comes to battling evil. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places(Ephesians 6:12).
“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled” (2 Corinthians 10:3-6).
Who can wage this war “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places”? Only the Church established by and empowered by Jesus Christ. Sadly, it remains silent as if completely powerless.
[1] The End Times Battles in Islam. Answering-Christianity.com. Source: http://www.answering-christianity.com/end_of_times_battles_in_islam.htm.
Related Reads:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/israel-and-the-middle-east-james-f-gauss/1144490945
JGB Products 
Leave a comment