Christians, pray urgently that God brings down Iran’s ‘wicked, cruel regime’ that embraces ‘Apocalyptic Islam’ & seeks to bring about ‘End of Days,’ Rosenberg tells CBN News
‘Protests aren't as big as they were three years ago, but they are growing,’ ALL ISRAEL NEWS editor says
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL — Could the end be near for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his regime?
While it’s too soon to draw any definitive conclusions, ALL ISRAEL NEWS Editor-in-Chief Joel C. Rosenberg is urging Christians around the world to watch the unfolding situation closely and to pray urgently for the regime to fall and for the suffering yet courageous Iranian people to be liberated.
Appearing on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “700 Club,” Rosenberg told host Gordon Robertson that while Iranians have poured onto the streets before in recent years to protest their government and demand change, this time is different.
WHY IS THIS MOMENT IN IRAN DIFFERENT THAN PAST PROTESTS?
“What's different, Gordon, is that we're in an entirely different environment where Iranians increasingly perceive their regime – their wicked, cruel, evil regime – as vulnerable for several reasons,” Rosenberg explained.
“Israel attacked last June and decimated Iran's ballistic missile force and did terrible damage, severe damage, to Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” he noted.
“Then President Trump sent B-2 bombers, dropped 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs, and finished off Iran's nuclear weapons program.”
What’s more, Rosenberg added, “President Trump, just a few days ago, warned the Iranian regime, if you start killing Iranian protesters, ‘America will come to the rescue.’ That's a direct quote. And the second quote was the American military is, ‘locked and loaded and ready to go.’”
While “the protests aren't as big as they were three years ago,” Rosenberg said, he quickly added, “they are growing.”
WHAT IS ‘APOCALYPTIC ISLAM’?
The founder of ALL ISRAEL NEWS and ALL ARAB NEWS has long called for the end of the Iranian regime and warned that Khamenei and his inner circle are especially dangerous to the United States and Israel because they practice something Rosenberg calls “Apocalyptic Islam.”
“The Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has an eschatology, a Shia Islamic apocalyptic eschatology, that he wants to destroy Judeo-Christian civilization,” he explained.
Khamenei “wants to destroy Israel – the ‘Little Satan,’ in his view – and the United States, the ‘Great Satan.’ Then he wants to usher in the way for the Twelfth Imam, or the Mahdi, to come and rule and govern the entire planet in Islam [under draconian Shariah Law].”
It’s this genocidal End Times theology that drives Khamenei to pursue nuclear weapons and thousands of long-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles to fire those thermonuclear warheads at Israel and the American homeland to wipe both off the map.
THE PROTESTS IN IRAN ARE GROWING IN SIZE AND INTENSITY – WHERE WILL THEY LEAD?
Overnight, as videos on social media showed more and more Iranians flooding the streets to call for the overthrow of the regime – responding, in part, to calls by exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to turn out en masse – Rosenberg urged Christians to pray without ceasing.
“Evangelicals, join me in praying for the Iranian people as they courageously take a stand against the wicked regime in Tehran,” Rosenberg wrote.
“Pray that the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ and everyone associated with him and loyal to him will be removed. Pray Iran experiences a new birth of freedom.”
A few hours later, he wrote, “Is Iran’s self-described ‘Supreme Leader’ about to meet the King of the Universe face-to-face? Christians, pray for judgment to fall on the wicked Iranian regime soon and for the suffering people of the great Persian nation to be liberated. #Pray4Iran”
TRUMP SAYS US STANDS WITH THE IRANIAN PEOPLE
On Thursday, the Iranian government shut down the Internet nationwide, hoping to thwart news of the swelling demonstrations from spreading and to thwart coordination of the protests.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald J. Trump made clear his and the American people’s support for the protestors and underscored his warnings that the U.S. military will attack if the Iranian regime begins slaughtering innocent civilians.
CBN News anchor Gordon Robertson also asked Rosenberg why Iran’s leaders pursue alliances with anti-American and anti-Israel leaders in Russia, China, and Venezuela.
Robertson also asked about the future of Gaza and whether President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have a clear plan to disarm Hamas.
You can listen to the audio of the conversation – or you can read the full transcript here, lightly edited for clarity.
GORDON ROBERTSON: Joel, welcome back to the program. It's great to see you.
JOEL ROSENBERG: Gordon. It's great to be with you. Thank you for having me back on the 700 Club, especially from Israel.
GORDON: What's the difference about this protest movement? We've seen it before. I mean, there have been numerous protests, revolutions, the green revolution, over the years. What's different about this one?
JOEL: What's different, Gordon, is that we're in an entirely different environment where Iranians increasingly perceive their regime – their wicked, cruel, evil regime – as vulnerable for several reasons.
One, because Israel attacked last June and decimated Iran's ballistic missile force and did terrible damage, severe damage, to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Then, President Trump sent B-2 bombers, dropped 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs, and finished off Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Then, President Trump, just a few days ago, warned the Iranian regime, if you start killing Iranian protesters, “America will come to the rescue.” That's a direct quote. And the second quote was the American military is, “locked and loaded and ready to go.”
So, that's an entirely different environment. Interestingly enough, Gordon, the protests aren't as big as they were three years ago, but they are growing.
GORDON: What's the truth here? I'm hearing reports that somehow or other, the leadership is looking to exit the country – and everything is really fragile – that there's a real possibility of, you know, the monarchy coming back and being restored. Is any of that possible?
JOEL: Well, first of all, let's really pray with your entire CBN audience that this wicked regime would come down once and for all.
I think there's one piece of positive news and one cautionary note.
The positive news is this: The fall of Bashar al-Assad, the demon of Damascus. The former president of Syria, when he got worried that he was going to be thrown out, or overrun by his own people, he got on a plane and flew to Moscow with his family and his millions of dollars. So that's the model [the Iranian regime is thinking about.] Then comes President Trump’s stunning and very successful and pretty brazen raid into Caracas and his arrest of Venezuelan madman, Nicolas Maduro. This was another warning [to Iran’s leaders]. So, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, is in poor health. He's 86 years old and he's got to really calculate, where does he want to live out his last days? Where is he going to go if his regime is going to fall? That's the good news.
The cautionary note is this: I think we have to be careful to [understand] that if the ayatollah – the Supreme Leader – goes, that does not necessarily mean that Iran is free. Okay? Let's remember all the years we prayed that Fidel Castro would leave or die. Well, that happened. He died. But then his evil brother took over, and Cuba is not free.
I just want us to keep praying. But let's keep the full picture in view that just because one man leaves, or one family leaves – or even the inner circle leaves – there's a lot of other wicked people at the top that could run Iran in a horrible way for a long time. So, there are a lot of elements at play here.
GORDON: How deep does the ideology of hate go in the leadership of Iran? It seems like they're just continuing to breathe hatred against Israel. The entire nuclear program. The ballistic missile program. Hezbollah. Hamas. It's all designed to wipe Israel off the map. How deep does that go in Iranian culture?
JOEL: In the culture, it doesn't go down deep at all.
This [hatred] is all in the regime and in the broader government. When I say regime, I mean the people at the absolute top with full control. Then there's a government that they manage, right? And then there's the people.
The people are done with this regime. And the faster the regime could be swept away, the better.
But I would say there are three levels at the absolute top.
First, there’s what I would call “apocalyptic Islam.” The Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has an eschatology, a Shia Islamic apocalyptic eschatology, that he wants to destroy Judeo-Christian civilization. He wants to destroy Israel, the “Little Satan,” in his view, and the United States, the “Great Satan.” Then he wants to usher in the way for the Twelfth Imam, or the Mahdi, to come and rule and govern the entire planet in Islam [under draconian Shariah Law]. That's the apocalyptic Islamic inner circle.
Then, there's radical Islam. That's the next level, which is bad but is not, “Let's bring about the end of the world.” But, you know, that level of the regime still wants to impose evil on its people and on its neighbors.
Finally, there's corruption, right, which is endemic in a lot of countries in the world.
So apocalyptic Islam, radical Islam, and then corruption – that combination is pretty toxic since 1979.
I believe prophetically there is a day coming when this is all going to be over. Are we approaching that [time] rapidly? That I don't know. And I want to be cautious not to be too quick a prophetic assessment because I just don't think we have enough data yet.
GORDON: All right. Well, let's talk about one of the strangest strategic alliances I think of the last 20 years. In Hugo Chavez [the dictator before Nicolas Maduro], you had a radical socialist who takes over Venezuela and establishes a socialist government there. But then he turns to what I consider an absolutely unlikely ally and that is Iran, including to the point that there are direct flights between Caracas and Tehran. How was that ever possible? What is the linkage between socialism, that sort of radical left, and a radical Islamic ideology?
JOEL: Well, Gordon, it's a great question because, you know, in many ways, if I had started writing political thrillers about secular socialists teaming up with apocalyptic Islamists, it seems ludicrous on the face of it, even for fiction. But in this world that we live in, life is stranger than fiction.
What we have today is this: anybody on the planet, any world leader who is evil, corrupt, cruel – and hates America and hates Israel — is immediately an ally of the Iranian regime. Okay? So, that's why the Iranian regime is in an alliance with Russia, right? Russia is a secular, corrupt mafia. Vladimir Putin is the godfather of Moscow and of Russia. But it doesn't matter to the Iranian leadership that he barely believes in God. And he certainly isn't Muslim. He [Putin] hates America and he hates the West, and he's willing to do business with the Iranian regime.
Same thing with the communist Chinese. They're godless communists. And the Iranian leadership doesn't care, right? Because why? Because Communist China buys Iranian black market oil.
Same thing with Hugo Chavez and, more recently, Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela is an ally that allows Iran and Hezbollah – the wholly owned subsidiary terrorist organization of Iran – to operate in the Western Hemisphere and sell drugs and move terrorists into the region and build Iranian weapons systems in factories built in Venezuela.
So, that's the reason, because they have common enemies. They have common enemies, even though they have completely different religions and ideologies.
GORDON: How deep is Iran into Venezuela? I think most Americans don't get it. So Delcy Rodriguez, who's now the acting president of the country, says that the capture of Maduro was a Zionist plot. And then I read reports that she's in business with Lebanese citizens and are they tied into Hezbollah? Does Hezbollah have business ties with Venezuela? Are they really constructing weapons systems there?
JOEL: Yes. I can't speak to the acting president that her ties to terrorists or terrorism. That's not yet clear to me. It probably is clear to others but I don't have enough data on that yet. But there's no question that the Iranian regime and Hezbollah have been working very closely with Venezuela ever since Hugo Chavez opened the door. And Nicolas Maduro just continued that.
I just interviewed for 75 minutes on Sunday of this week, former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen. And yesterday interviewed Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar. And together the assessment was this: There is no question how deep Iran's economic, military and terror ties are into Venezuela. Same with Hezbollah.
So, while President Trump struck Caracas to arrest Maduro and his wife for American interests, it certainly helped Israeli interests. It wasn't driven by Israel. I don't think Israel would have even suggested such a brazen move. But Trump is reasserting the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere. He’s doing this with, I have to say, a very impressive Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who himself is from a Cuban heritage. Venezuela's connection to the Cuban regime is horrible and very, very close. So, Rubio gets it. Clearly, President Trump gets it. And Israel has been applauding the moves over the last week because it really does help us.
GORDON: One last question. With all of the change in Venezuela, and the ongoing revolution in Iran, it looks like Gaza has been completely taken out of the conversation. I read that the Gulf states have no interest at all in providing some kind of peacekeeping force there to make sure Hamas doesn't rearm. What's your prediction there?
Is Israel going to have to stay the course and provide security for Gaza? Is there any hope that there could be a Gulf state solution to this?
JOEL: Well, to keep it brief, Gordon, it's a great question. Yes, Gaza has been knocked out of the news, but not out of the conversation. I was just in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and I just met with a senior advisor to UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed. And they are very much involved.
Now, your nuanced question is: Are the UAE and the Saudis and Bahrainis and others going to send troops? That's still an open question. But they're ready to send money and they're already thinking through, How do you de-radicalize the schools and the mosques and the media? But your larger question, you know, is actually very much the conversation.
Remember, Prime Minister Netanyahu was just with President Trump for almost a week in Mar-a-Lago – at the Mar-a-Lago summit – which was just basically Netanyahu and the president. It was the sixth time that Netanyahu had met with Trump in person in 2025. And you remember that President Biden didn't even invite Netanyahu to come to the White House.
So, Gaza was very much part of that conversation. It is not yet clear exactly how Hamas is going to be disarmed. Trump keeps saying it has to happen. Israel says it has to happen. They agree on that. The question is: How? And Israel is very concerned that Trump seems – publicly, at least – open to the possibility of Turkish troops in Gaza. That would be a disaster for Israel. Why? Because President Erdogan of Turkey hates Israel and has claimed Jerusalem for his own and has threatened to invade Israel because of what we're doing in Gaza to defend ourselves. Turkey is a bad actor. But they're still a NATO country. So if, God forbid, Israel got into a self-defense moment and accidentally killed Turkish troops in Gaza, that could trigger a war with NATO. That would be a mess. So, Israel has been very clear: Absolutely not.
I asked the foreign minister about that. And, tonight on THE ROSENBERG REPORT on TBN, you'll hear the interview as he goes into that. But bottom line: I think Trump and Netanyahu – they have the same objective. I don't think they figured out a mechanism to truly disarm Hamas. And that's a concern. But it’s something for us to keep praying about. I'm not pessimistic, but it is a concern.
GORDON: Joel, thanks for being with us. And thanks for your insights. Joel is the editor-in-chief of ALL ISRAEL NEWS. You can keep up with the latest headlines in the Middle East by visiting their website, www.AllIsraelNews.com. And you can also sign up for their newsletters and get it right into your inbox. Again, thank you for being with us.
JOEL: Thank you, Gordon. Happy New Year and God bless you.
GORDON: God bless you.
The All Israel News Staff is a team of journalists in Israel.
