As war in the Middle East enters its second week, U.S. military officers are holding “prayer meetings” at the Pentagon and telling soldiers that the war on Iran is a religious war mandated by God and intended to bring nearer the day of the “rapture.” Soldiers at such Pentagon meetings and at locations at military installations around the U.S. have been describing the sessions to the press, asking in most cases that their names not be revealed for fear of repercussions.
The United States launched its war on Iran last week and has, since then, carried out deadly bombing raids. The war, in only seven days, has spread to 16 countries, engulfing the Middle East but spreading out into Europe, the African continent, and Asia.
Even before soldiers started coming out and talking about the lectures from Christian nationalist commanders, top officials in the U.S. government were employing appeals to Christian nationalists to grow support for an eventual attack on Iran. High up on that list was Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who told the press that Iran is run by “religious fanatic lunatics.”
There are various groups in the U.S. that monitor what they consider threats to religious freedom, including inside the Army, Navy, and Air Force. One such group, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), says it is receiving emailed complaints from U.S. soldiers who say they have been told by superior officers that the war against Iran is intended to “cause Armageddon.”
MRFF said it has received numerous emails from U.S. service members who say they were told the war with Iran is meant to trigger Armageddon, which, according to Christian fundamentalists, will be a feature of the “end times.”
According to the group, an unnamed noncommissioned officer wrote in an email to MRFF that a commander had urged officers “to tell our troops that this was all part of God’s divine plan,” and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelations referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.
The report in MRFF, picked up already by various media outlets beyond those normally associated with online conspiracy theories, explained that the commander had told the unit that Trump “has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.”
Such reports would be serious enough even if the increasing of right-wing Christian nationalist support for Trump’s war was limited to certain Pentagon and military officials. Top civilian officials in the government, however, have clearly joined the effort.
Last month, Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, told right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson that it would be “fine” if Israel took “essentially the entire Middle East” because it was promised that land in the Bible.
In addition to the aforementioned remarks by Rubio, saying Iran is “run by religious fanatic lunatics,” there are similar claims based on religion being made by others.
In a Pentagon press conference, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared: “Crazy regimes like Iran, hell-bent on prophetic Islamic delusions, cannot have nuclear weapons.” Israel, which Huckabee said is entitled to the entire Middle East, already has nuclear weapons.
In a statement, the Committee on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that Hegseth’s words are “an apparent reference to Shia beliefs about religious figures arising near the end times.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, like Christian nationalists in the U.S., is deeply involved in using religion to justify war. He referenced the Torah recently to compare Iran with an ancient biblical enemy of the Jews, the Amalekites.
The “Amalek” are used to represent evil in some Jewish religious traditions, but are used by right-wing politicians in Israel today who compare them with modern-day Iranians.
Netanyahu said in a recent speech that “We read in this week’s Torah portion, ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’ We remember—and we act.” CAIR, in a statement, said: “We are not surprised to see Benjamin Netanyahu once again using the biblical story of Amalek—which claims that God commanded the Israelites to murder every man, woman, child and animal in a pagan nation that attacked them—to justify Israel’s mass murder of civilians in Iran, just as it did in Gaza.”
Taking note of support for and then condemning Christian nationalism in the highest levels of the Pentagon, CAIR noted that “Mr. Hegseth’s derisive comment about ‘Islamist prophetic delusions,’ an apparent reference to Shia beliefs about religious figures arising near the end times, was unacceptable. So is U.S. military commanders telling troops that war with Iran is a biblical step towards Armageddon?”
By describing the war on Iran as a ”holy war,” students of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures say there is an attempt to use religion and religious beliefs to justify war and violence, and to increase opinion in favor of and support for the war. They try to tell people that “God is on our side,” the biblical experts note.
A video on social media shows John Hagee delivering a sermon promoting the U.S. assault on Iran. Hagee said that Russia, Turkey, “what’s left of Iran,” and “groups of Islamics” will march into Israel. He predicts “God will crush the adversaries of Israel.” With Christian “friends” like Hagee, however, many students of the bible point out that Israel does not need enemies. Hagee and other Christian nationalists promote a biblical interpretation of the Book of Revelation that we must fight to save Israel now so that it can be destroyed when Jesus Christ returns.
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