For those Americans unsure of why President Donald Trump broke his pledge to avoid the endless wars of his recent predecessors—and the polls show a growing number are unhappy with the war he plunged into against Iran, in partnership with rabid Greater Israel fanatic and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu—spokesmen for “U.S. Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth provided an answer. No, it’s not to defend the world from a non-existent nuclear weapon, nor to defend the region against terrorism allegedly launched by Tehran, nor to defend the Iranian people from their government, among the mix of justifications offered by the U.S. President.
The war is instead “all part of God’s plan,” soldiers are being told, to fulfill the mandate for “Christians” to hasten the arrival of the “End Times,” according to an interpretation preached in pep talks to soldiers heading into battle. This was reported by Mikey Weinstein, the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), who reported on more than 100 complaints he has received from non-commissioned officers. Weinstein is a veteran who worked in the President Ronald Reagan White House.
He said: “Our MRFF clients report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new ‘Biblically-sanctioned’ war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian ‘End Times’ as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation…. Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be, zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end-of-the-world eschatology,” he added.
Weinstein’s comments were filed in a report by independent journalist Jonathan Larsen, who wrote that complaints have been made by members of the armed forces who expressed concern that they are being told by senior officers that the war on Iran is part of “God’s divine plan,” with claims made that U.S. President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus” to spark Armageddon.
Larsen says Weinstein cited complaints filed in the first 48 hours after the attack on Iran began. One email sent to Larsen argued that such rhetoric “destroy[s] morale and unit cohesion and [is] in violation of the oaths we swore to support the Constitution.”
Also speaking out in defense of the separation of church and state was the Eisenhower Media Group on March 8. In an appeal demanding an end to the Iran war, signed by 20 retired military and intelligence veterans, they warned against the “shared desire … to enforce American hegemony, aligned with Zionist hegemonic goals of a ‘greater’ Israel.” Even worse, they conclude, “is that U.S. and Israeli leaders are citing Biblical passages and alleged Judeo-Christian beliefs in support of this war. It seems that we are only a few steps away from the madness of the Crusades.”
This danger was addressed in a letter submitted to Pentagon Inspector General Platte B. Moring III, requesting that he investigate Millenarian cult-like teachings of the “Second Coming of Jesus” to inspire soldiers deployed to the fight against Iran. The letter, signed by 30 Democratic Congressmen, demands a full investigation of “disturbing discourse within the military that the current war in Iran is justified by biblical end-time prophecies.”
Hegseth and Biblical Prophecy
Pete Hegseth, the “U.S. Secretary of War” and a self-proclaimed devout Christian, is a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, commonly known as the CREC. The CREC was co-founded in 1998 by Doug Wilson, then a pastor in Moscow, Idaho. It now has more than 150 affiliated churches in the United States, Canada, Australia, and reportedly some other countries. Wilson is a leading exponent of theocratic libertarianism, which is a system in which America and other nations will be run by Biblical laws, based on Old Testament interpretations of severe punishment and banishment. It is part of a broader prophetic movement, Christian Reconstructionism, which promotes the belief in the idea of a coming battle of Armageddon, which will be followed by the return of Jesus Christ.
Wilson was invited by Hegseth to deliver a sermon in the Pentagon auditorium on Feb. 17, which was broadcast on the Department of Defense’s internal network. While he avoided language explicitly endorsing a war in Southwest Asia as an opportunity to hasten, through war, the fulfillment of End Times eschatology associated with the “Battle of Armageddon,” some military officials and clergy say his sermon crossed the line separating church and state. One cited the following passage from his remarks as an example of this: “We are looking to God to provide us with what we desperately need in a desperate hour,” he preached. “We should not want God simply to win. We want God to get the glory through the win.”
Operation Epic Fury, the coordinated assault against Iran by Israel and the United States, began on February 28, eleven days after Wilson’s sermon. Hegseth’s public statements in the days after the war began were filled with expressions of violent, muscular militarism, befitting his self-image of a warrior from the Crusades. He proudly displays a tattoo of a Jerusalem cross on his chest, also known as the “Crusaders cross,” which dates from the crusades to conquer Jerusalem in the 11th Century, to retake the city from the Muslim “infidels.” This symbol has been adopted today by alt-right, white supremacist, and Christian nationalist groups.
The belief in spiritual transformation from a sinner to one doing God’s work to bring about the “Rapture” was cited previously by those warhawks who justified the lying about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction which preceded President George W. Bush’s attack on Iraq. On his being “born again,” Bush stated that his faith freed him—“frees me to make decisions that others might not like”—such as unleashing genocidal chaos in 2003 which was part of the destabilization in Southwest Asia which continues to today.[[1]]
In 2018, Hegseth put himself among those committed to rebuilding the Third Temple on the Temple Mount, in an address in Israel. He said that he believes the time is coming for the building of the Third Temple, stating that now is the time for a “miracle,” as you can “do what needs to be done”—take back the Temple Mount—with support for this “among evangelical Christians in the United States.” The issue of the Third Temple is one of the hottest flash points to trigger war between Muslims and Zionists.
EIR will continue its investigation on the influence of this belief on Hegseth and the millions of “British Israelites” who insist the United States must fulfill its “Christian purpose” by supporting the Zionist state of Israel. This is, strangely enough, a belief structure which provides a common cause for fundamentalist Christians and Messianic Zionists in the war against Israel’s Arab and Muslim neighbors.
The Messianic Roots of Greater Israel
An Israeli version of the messianic beliefs of what is sometimes referred to as “Christian Zionism” is found in the pronouncements of the Greater Israel fanatics in charge of Israel’s military and security apparatus. A video produced two months after the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 showed ecstatic members of the Israel Defense Forces gyrating wildly while singing a song about their mission: “In coming to occupy Gaza,” they chanted, “I stick by one Mitzvah [blessing], to wipe out the seed of Amalek…. We know our slogan, there are no uninvolved civilians.”
In this, they were following the leadership of their sociopathic Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who often cites the Torah passage 1 Samuel 15: 6-7 commanding Israelites to attack the Amalekites—the bitter enemies of the Jews in Biblical Palestine—“and wipe out their memory.” He called on troops to remember this when the genocidal attack on Gaza began, and again at the beginning of the present war against Iran. Netanyahu said, “We read in this week’s Torah portion, ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’ We remember, and we act.”
When the war began, Netanyahu confided that for forty years, his dream has been to destroy Iran, to complete the elimination of opponents among Israel’s neighbors to the establishment, by conquest, of Greater Israel. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told independent talk show host Tucker Carlson that it would be “fine” if Israel took over all of the Middle East, suggesting that the Bible gives the Zionist state that right. He specified that the land “from the river of Egypt until the great river, the Euphrates” belongs to Israel. In an address to the UN in September 2004, Netanyahu produced a map which showed all those lands as part of Israel. With the support of Donald Trump, united in the intent to destroy Iran, Netanyahu is clinging to the delusional belief that his dream can be realized.
Will the Americans accept the cost in human casualties, tax dollars, and the loss of respect of other nations to help Netanyahu achieve his dream? And what of the Israeli population—will anyone stand against the Greater Israel fanatics, as they continue a genocidal march through Southwest Asia?
A different dream for Israel’s future was presented by former Speaker of the Knesset Avrum Burg, in a column titled “The Men Who Think They Can Topple Regimes.” He wrote that he, too, wishes to see “the removal of a brutal authoritarian leader, the replacement of a theocratic regime, the separation of religious fundamentalism from the machinery of the state, and the opening of space for a democratic civil society to organize and take responsibility for the country. I only have one small amendment to propose. Instead of starting in Tehran, perhaps we should begin here, in Jerusalem. If it works, we can continue there. Let someone come, gently enough, and remove the authoritarian dinosaur and his entourage who have taken over the Prime Minister’s Office. There is no need for dramatic assassinations. It would be enough if the Israeli supreme leader were simply sent home, if the bond between messianic religion and political power were severed, and if a broad civic public were allowed once again to take responsibility for society and the state.”
Appendix: Rapture Fundies in the White House
On March 9, President Trump welcomed a group of evangelists to the White House for a pep rally for U.S. forces engaged in bombing Iran. Led by his “spiritual advisor,” Paula White-Cain, whom he appointed to lead the White House Faith Office, they engaged in a prayer ritual and a “laying on of hands” on the President.
White-Cain, who sees herself as an evangelist for holy war, shouted out a chant for victory, as they gathered around Trump:
“I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of shouting and singing. I hear the sound of victory. The Lord says it is done. I hear Victory! Victory! Victory!” she bellowed out, virtually screaming while writhing in ecstasy.
White-Cain is a longtime supporter of Trump. She previously served as a special advisor to the Faith and Opportunity Initiative, where she engaged in supporting “faith-based” projects backed by the idea of the prosperity gospel: If you are “right with the Lord, He will shower you with riches.”
This is the perfect mantra for the [Jeffrey] Epstein Class, the billionaires who are serving the President as they pursue fortunes for the corporations they run as technocrats for the expanded military-industrial complex. As they preach privatization and deregulation—an integral part of the prosperity gospel beliefs—their bank accounts swell, increasing the gap between the super-wealthy and the sinking middle-class in America.
[[1]]: For a detailed report on this, see this author’s article “Fundamentalism in America,” in the Feb. 4, 2005 issue of Executive Intelligence Review, which includes the roots of this eschatology in the British Israelite “Scofield Bible,” published by Oxford University.
