If Israel strikes Iran's nuclear facilities this year, it can count on fierce Russian opposition. Russia has not only helped Iran build its Bushehr nuclear power plant. It is also reportedly arming Syria's Assad regime in its brutal crackdown on opposition forces while at the same time cozying up to Hezbollah and Hamas.
Once Vladimir Putin, who longs to return Russia to its former Soviet-era power, reassumes the Russian presidency in March, Russia will even more openly align itself with Israel's enemies in the Middle East.
And none more closely than Iran. We received a preview last week from two hawkish Putin allies. First, from Russia's outgoing Ambassador to NATO (from Reuters):
Russia would regard any military intervention linked to Iran's nuclear program as a threat to its own security, Moscow's departing ambassador to NATO warned on Friday.
"Iran is our neighbor," Dmitry Rogozin told reporters in Brussels. "And if Iran is involved in any military action, it's a direct threat to our security."
Rogozin was speaking two days after the killing of a nuclear scientist in Tehran by a hitman on a motorcycle.
Kremlin Security Council head Nikolai Patrushev, who is close to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said Israel was pushing the United States towards war with Iran, according to the Interfax news agency.
Russia, however, opposes a boycott of Iranian oil.
"We are definitely interested in the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," Rogozin said on Friday. "But at the same time, we believe that any country has the right to have what it needs to feel comfortable, including Iran."
Rogozin, often described as an anti-Western hawk, was appointed deputy prime minister in December, and will oversee Russia's defense sector when he returns to Moscow.
So the Kremlin considers a military strike against Iran a threat to Russia's security? Very strong stuff.
And that's not all. Here's more, from Putin confidante Nikolai Patrushev, who heads the Kremlin's Security Council (from Reuters):
Russia fears Israel will push the United States into a military conflict with Iran which could retaliate by blocking oil shipments from the Gulf, a confidant of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.
"There is a likelihood of military escalation of the conflict, towards which Israel is pushing the Americans," Nikolai Patrushev, who heads the Kremlin's Security Council, told Interfax news agency.
Patrushev, a former head of the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said Tehran could respond by blocking the Strait of Hormuz between Oman and Iran, through which 35 percent of the world's seaborne traded oil passes.
To students of Bible prophecy, this is no surprise. The Prophet Ezekiel talks about a confederacy of Islamic nations coming against Israel in the latter days, led by a country to Israel's uttermost north.
Look on the map, folks. That country is Russia. Ezekiel says that chief among the nations joining Russia will be Persia--modern-day Iran. Libya and Turkey are also mentioned, as are some of the nations that would be part of Putin's proposed Eurasian Union.
To the ultra-secular, liberal ear, it all sounds crazy. But to those with Biblical discernment, who understand the signs and the times, it is a further signal that prophecy is unfolding before our eyes at a rapid pace.