A little over ten years ago, then–Secretary of State John Kerry said out loud what much of the media had kept remarkably quiet. He said that Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim terror group that had dominated the nation of Lebanon for decades, possessed an arsenal of 80,000 rockets and ballistic missiles, mostly supplied by Iran.
By then, Israeli intelligence estimated that Hezbollah actually had 100,000 missiles — all aimed at Israel. During the years that followed, Iran upgraded Hezbollah’s missile cache both in quantity and quality. By the time of the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, Hezbollah’s stockpile of missiles and rockets exceeded 150,000. That’s more ballistic missiles than any NATO nation in Europe has in its arsenal.
As October 7, 2023 dawned, Iran had Israel surrounded. Iran controlled Hezbollah, and Hezbollah controlled Lebanon on Israel’s north. Iran directed Syria on Israel’s northeast. Iran gave arms to, and held the loyalty of, Iraq’s massive Shiite militias to Israel’s east. Yemen’s Houthi rebels were over a thousand miles to Israel’s south, but with sophisticated Iranian missiles and drones, they made their presence felt. Palestinian terrorists carried out an ongoing campaign against Israel from Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank). Hamas controlled Gaza to Israel’s west. As Sunni Muslims, Hamas did not hold religious loyalty to Shiite Iran, but it shared Iran’s goal of annihilating Israel and Jews from the face of the earth. Also, Hamas liked Iran’s money and weapons.
Iran, the puppet master, stood a thousand miles away — directing it all. It supplied money, training, intelligence, and strategic direction. They chanted, “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” These were not mere political slogans, but expressions of religious creed. Most people in the West do not know how powerful religious devotion can be, but they should know it can be deadly on a vast scale when it centers on hate.
Iran had oil and oil money. It had the nuclear powers of Russia, China, and North Korea for strategic partners. And Iran had a religious zeal to build its own nuclear weapons, along with the missiles to deliver them anywhere in the world. In the US, successive presidents threatened to use force against Iran. But they did not solve the problem and, in some cases, made the situation much worse.
It’s difficult to grasp how dramatically everything has changed since Hamas crossed the border into Israel on October 7, 2023. Hamas still exists and might rise again, but, for now, it is a shell of its former self. Hezbollah keeps finding and firing remnants of its old missile arsenal, but it has nothing like the stockpile it had just 2½ years ago. The new regime in Syria is wicked and dangerous, but it is not linked to Iran as the old Assad regime had been. The Houthis, the Shiite militias in Iraq, and other enemies of Israel still exist. But the Iranian regime that once fed and directed them has been shattered.
Much of the world cheered the attacks of October 7. They thought it was the beginning of the end for Israel. Yet, the opposite happened. It reminds me of a line from James Weldon Johnson’s classic poem, “The Prodigal Son,” from his famous book, God’s Trombones. The preacher in the poem begins his sermon with some of the most profound words ever spoken: “Young man — Young man — Your arm’s too short to box with God.”
That’s a good word for people, young and old. And it applies to nations.
Isaiah 45:9 warns, “Woe to him who strives with his Maker!” Isaiah 14:27 says, “For the Lord of hosts has purposed, And who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, And who will turn it back?” God made certain unconditional promises to Israel — not because they deserve it, but because He willed it. Nothing will prevent those promises from being fulfilled.
