We Should Chat

Here are a couple of feel-good stories from two misunderstood men. We really ought to reach out to them, try to understand them, and have peace talks with them, even if they have no desire for peace. First, some not so good news from our "friend," Vladimir Putin:

MOSCOW — In a threat not uttered since the Cold War, Vladimir Putin said that Russia intends to aim its missile systems - potentially nuclear weapons - at targets in Europe in retaliation for the U.S. decision to establish antimissile bases there.

During a lengthy dinner, Russia's President defended his semi-authoritarian style and insisted he is the world's only true democrat. In an interview with The Globe and Mail and a small circle of other journalists, he stressed that his country is not moving away from a market economy, refused to consider extraditing a former KGB agent charged with poisoning a dissident in London, and lashed out repeatedly at the United States and NATO for operating in countries previously within Russia's sphere of influence.

And then there's this news out of Tehran:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday said the world would witness the destruction of Israel soon, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Ahmadinejad said last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah showed for the first time that the "hegemony of the occupier regime (Israel) had collapsed, and the Lebanese nation pushed the button to begin counting the days until the destruction of the Zionist regime," IRNA quoted him as saying.

"God willing, in the near future we will witness the destruction of the corrupt occupier regime," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying during a speech to foreign guests mostly from African, Arab and neighboring countries who attended ceremonies marking the 18th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who is known as the father of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

It's stories like these that make me keep reading Joel Rosenberg. Day after day, headline after headline, he's pointing to what appears to be fulfillment of Biblical prophecy of an alliance between Russia & Iran in order to attempt to destroy Israel and the West.