Poor David Lammy. The foreign secretary appears to be a typically pusillanimous British minister, a speaker of mincing words. He won’t say whether America joining Israel’s attacks on Iran is legal, or even a good idea.
He may be trying to preserve the fantasy of the “special relationship” with the US. But he may also have ducked the question because he doesn’t want to get crushed in the Iran-Israel battle between biblical enemies Gog and Megog, stampeded by the four horsemen of the apocalypse, or knifed by Shia hashashin as mortal foes rush us all towards the “End of Times”.
The attorney general has warned Sir Keir Starmer that Britain becoming involved in US attacks on Iran could be illegal. Lord Richard Hermer told the British government that it was likely to be illegal for the UK to attack Iran. So surely it would be illegal for America to do the same?
But given that Donald Trump doesn’t value international law, or domestic legislation, legal niceties over Iran appear to mean nothing.
Seemingly more important to him are Rapture Christians who believe the second coming of Christ is close. They’re among his most devoted supporters – 72 per cent of white evangelical Christians support Trump according to an April poll by Pew. His ambassador to Israel is among the 39 per cent of all Americans (135 million), according to a 2022 Pew Poll, who believe the End of Times is upon us – and that it’s a good thing too.
The second Trump administration has become a crucible for the fusion of American evangelical eschatology [belief in the End Times] and Middle Eastern geopolitics. At the heart of this convergence lies a potent belief system that is rooted in a literal interpretation of biblical prophecy.
Mike Huckabee, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, is a leading End Timer. So is Paula White Cain, Trump’s “senior adviser” to his White House Faith Office who often speaks in tongues and prays against demons threatening America.
Broadly speaking, Christian Zionists believe all Jewish people must be gathered into Israel before a final confrontation between Good and Evil during the apocalypse which will hasten the End of Times and the second coming, and the rapture when the “righteous” will ascend into heaven over a golden bridge between the Mount of Olives and the (sealed) Golden Gate on the Western Wall of Jerusalem’s old city.
In April, Cain interviewed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is not a religious man but knows he’s a rock star among evangelical Christians.
She asked him: “The Christian vision of the End of Days foretells of some profound transformation and redemption, and based on the events that are unfolding today, do you feel that we are seeing these signs of the vision come to fruition?”
Netanyahu knows that supernatural events play well with evangelicals. He replied that the return of the Jewish people to Israel after 3,000 years was a “miracle”, as was the survival of modern Israel in what he said was a “string of miracles by themselves”.
In the 16th century, Muslim leader Suleiman the Magnificent bricked up the gate to stop potential Messiahs getting into the city he ruled over.
But there is also a long tradition of apocalyptic belief that runs through the Twelver Shiism that is the official religion of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Central to the tradition, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is the belief that we are indeed living through the end of days and that any moment the Mahdi, the 12th and final divine imam who vanished in the 10th century, will re-emerge.
He will lead his followers to conquer the world, starting in the Middle East, and rule for a few years before the Day of Judgement.
To hasten his emergence, Khamenei and his regime have incorporated the Mahdist beliefs into the core of the security and political structures of their nation. They have led with the preconditions for the return of the Mahdi – clerical rule and the export of the Islamic revolution.
This pits Iran against the US, which is seen as bent on world domination, and Israel, which inhibits the spread of Mahdism in the Middle East.
According to a study by the Hudson Institute in the US, Mahdism is now a central organising theology inside the Isamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Nasij militia across Iran.
“It is possible that they may seek to facilitate and speed up the return of Mahdi,” the 2022 report concluded. “This would have major implications for some of the policies that are being understood through the prism of Mahdism, such as Israel’s existence being the “greatest barrier” to the reappearance of the 12th Imam [the mahdi].”
The UK, France, Germany, the EU and now Russia are all calling for a “diplomatic solution” to the escalating war between US/Israel and Iran.
But they have perhaps missed the key issue – which is that in Washington and Tehran many want apocalypse now.
