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Egypt Independent
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Egypt Independent
Prophecy, not politics, may also shape America's clash with Iran
When most people contemplate the future of America's conflict with Iran, they hunt for clues in grainy satellite photos, statements from military analysts and President Trump's social media posts. But when scholar Diana Butler Bass considers what could happen next, her thoughts turn toward another group she says is now thinking more about prophecy than politics. She recalls warnings from her childhood about the rise of an Antichrist, stories about weeping mothers clutching their empty blankets after their babies were suddenly 'Raptured' to heaven and paintings of an angry Jesus leading armies of angels to an Armageddon-like, final battle in modern-day Israel. Those stories terrified and thrilled Bass when she heard them growing up in a White evangelical church in the 1970s. It was a time when the end always seemed near, and books like the bestseller 'The Late Great Planet Earth' warned Christians to gird their loins for a period of Great Tribulation and prepare for Jesus' triumphant return to Jerusalem. Bass, a prominent, progressive religious author who hosts a popular Substack newsletter called 'The Cottage,' no longer believes those stories. Yet when she considers why the US struck three nuclear facilities in Iran this month and what could happen next, she now offers a prophecy of her own: Bombing Iran will reinforce Trump's status as God's 'Chosen One' and Israel as His chosen nation among many of the President's White evangelical supporters. Many of these supporters dismiss the dangers of a larger war, she tells CNN, because such a clash would mean the world is approaching the 'end times' — a series of cataclysmic events ushering in the Second Coming of Christ and the rise of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecies. 'There's almost a kind of spiritual eagerness for a war in the Middle East,' says Bass, describing attitudes among some White evangelicals. 'They believe a war is going to set off a series of events that will result in Jesus returning.' Trump's decision to bomb Iran has so far been examined almost exclusively through the lens of politics or military strategy. Yet there is a religious dimension to his decision – and what could happen next – that's been underexplored. President Donald Trump speaks from the East Room of the White House on June 21, 2025, after the U.S. military struck three Iranian nuclear and military sites, directly joining Israel's effort to decapitate the country's nuclear program. Joining him are Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Carlos Barria/AP America's approach to Iran and Israel may not just be driven by sober assessment of geopolitics. Bass and other religious scholars say US policy in the Middle East is also influenced by the controversial teachings of a pugnacious 19th century Anglo-Irish clergyman and a series of lurid, 'Left Behind' doomsday Christian books and films. This is dangerous, says Jemar Tisby, a historian and best-selling author of 'Stories of the Spirit of Justice.' 'Trump's action underscores how these theological beliefs are not abstract; they have direct, dangerous, and deadly consequences,' Tisby wrote recently in his 'Footnotes' newsletter. He elaborated in an interview this week with CNN, saying that that apocalyptic visions from the Bible should not influence America's policy in Israel or Iran in any way. 'You layer on this prophecy about the rise of Israel and now all of a sudden you have this very literalistic interpretation of the Bible informing US foreign policy,' he says. Are Christians obligated to support Israel? White evangelicals who see America's conflict with Iran as primarily a spiritual battle instead of a political one tend to be motivated by several beliefs. One belief is that Trump is God's 'chosen one,' saved from assassination last year to do God's work and protect Israel. He is, to borrow from the parlance of evangelical subculture, called 'for such a time as this.' This belief is reflected in a text message to Trump from Mike Huckabee, the prominent evangelical and former Arkansas governor who was appointed by Trump to be US ambassador to Israel. Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, has been a staunch defender of the country for years and has led tours there of biblical the text, which was shared by Trump, Huckabee alluded to the two assassination attempts Trump survived last year in saying that God spared him 'to be the most consequential President in a century—maybe ever.' He added, 'I trust your instincts,' because 'I believe you hear from heaven,' and that 'You did not seek this moment. This moment sought YOU!' Huckabee's ambassadorship to Israel is not surprising. Many White evangelicals believe the church is obligated by the Bible to provide unwavering support to Israel. They view the ancient Israel described in the Bible as the same as the modern nation-state of Israel, which was created in 1948. Trump reinforced this view during his first term when he broke from decades of American policy to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. The move thrilled many White evangelical leaders, two of whom attended a ceremony marking the occasion. There is a long history of White evangelical leaders urging American presidents and politicians to treat Israel as a divinely favored nation. Many White evangelicals believe Israel's existence is a fulfillment of biblical prophecies that would usher in Jesus' return. Some cite a scripture from Genesis 12:3, which recounts God saying, 'I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse.' That passage depicts God addressing Abraham, the Jewish patriarch and 'father of all nations.' But some White evangelicals say that passage also refers to Israel — both then and now. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz alluded to that scripture when he defended his support of Israel's war with Iran in a recent interview. 'Growing up in Sunday School, I was taught from the Bible that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed,' he said. Other evangelical leaders have made similar claims. Pastor John Hagee, a prominent evangelical leader, has said that supporting Israel is not a political issue — it's a biblical one. Hagee is the founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, which boasts 10 million members and bills itself as the largest pro-Israel organization in the US. 'It is not possible to say, 'I believe in the Bible' and not support Israel and the Jewish people,' he once declared. Trump won the support of about 8 out of 10 White evangelical Christian voters in the 2024 presidential election. And in a CNN poll after the airstrikes on Iran, 87% of Republicans said they trust Trump to make the right decisions about US' use of force against the country. Franklin Graham, son of the late evangelical leader Billy Graham, said on X after the bombing of Iran 'that the world is in a much safer place.' The Rev. Robert Jeffress, a prominent evangelical leader, suggested last week that opposition to Israel is rebellion against God. While delivering a Sunday sermon praising Trump's decision, Jeffress sermon was interrupted by applause and a standing ovation from his congregation. President Donald Trump visits the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, in Jerusalem's Old City on May 22, 2017. Ronen Zvulun/Pool/AFP/Getty Images 'Those who oppose Israel are always on the wrong side of history, and most importantly, they are on the wrong side of God,' Jeffress said. 'And I thank God we finally have a president who understands that truth in Donald Trump.' Such unconditional support of Israel might make spiritual sense to evangelicals. But some scholars say it's a risky stance for a multiracial and multireligious democracy like the US to take. Americans' support for Israel had dropped to historic lows before the US' use of force in Iran. Tisby, the religious historian, tells CNN that the Israel depicted in the Bible is not the same as the modern-day country. 'If you conflate the two, you end up supporting all kinds of actions that hurt people in the name of politics,' Tisby says. 'It leads to the reluctance to recognize the rights of Palestinians. It blinds us to the human rights and justice issues that are at stake in the Middle East.' A controversial form of Christianity drives evangelical views on the Middle East Tisby and other religion scholars say America's bombing of Iran is also influenced by another source: a form of Christianity pioneered in the 19th century by John Nelson Darby, an Anglo-Irish pastor. Darby looked at certain passages in the Bible's book of Revelations and devised the concept of 'dispensationalism.' It divides history into distinct 'dispensations,' or periods through which God interacts with humanity differently. Many adherents to this tradition believe in a fiery apocalypse and the 'Rapture' — a moment when Christians are suddenly lifted to heaven before a period of tribulation on Earth. Darby's views were amplified a century later by the popular 'Left Behind' novels and films of the 1990s and 2000s, which reached millions of evangelicals with apocalyptic visions of the end times. The book series, inspired by Rapture theology and gory scenes in the Book of Revelation, has sold more than 65 million copies. Cassi Thomson in 'Left Behind,' a 2014 film based on theories of the Rapture and which depicts the world plunging into chaos after millions of people suddenly disappear. Stoney Lake/Gonella Productions/Kobal/Shutterstock The 'Left Behind' books were marketed as fiction, but they were treated as biblical truth by many evangelicals. Views of dispensationalism were taught in many evangelical churches, youth camps and Sunday schools, bringing them into the mainstream. Central to dispensationalism is the role of Israel in the last days. Its adherents believe that the establishment of the modern state of Israel marks the beginning of the end times — heralding the Second Coming of Christ. Israel's geopolitical success and security are seen as necessary preconditions for Christ's return, Tisby says. Dispensationalism has permeated White evangelical culture so much that many evangelicals today have adopted its tenets without being familiar with the term, Tisby says. 'Just because you don't have the name doesn't mean you're not actually adhering to the beliefs,' he says. 'It's so common now that it doesn't need to be named anymore.' She calls the Rapture a 'completely invented theology' Prophecies about angelic armies battling demonic armies in an apocalyptic Middle East sound implausible to many, but such beliefs gripped many of the White evangelical pastors and families she grew up with, says Bass, author of 'Freeing Jesus.' She recalls evangelical pastors preaching that whenever Israel gained more territory, it was God's will. Some pastors condemned Iran as evil. Jews, they said, would finally accept Jesus as their savior. But Jesus' return would be preceded by a series of cataclysmic events like the sudden disappearance of God's faithful and those 'left behind' — the non-believers who didn't accept Jesus. The belief that Christians could be teleported to heaven in the twinkle of an eye traumatized many young people at the time, she says. 'I had friends who would literally wake up in the middle of the night. And if their house was really quiet they would get very frightened and they'd sneak into their parents' bedroom to make sure their parents were still in their house,' she says. A paradegoer holds a sign at the Israel Day Parade celebrating the nation's 64th birthday on June 3, 2012, in New York. Anthony Behar/Sipa Most mainstream biblical scholars say the word 'rapture' does not appear in most translations of the Bible or the Book of Revelation. Many mainstream Biblical scholars say the Book of Revelation does not depict the literal end of the world: It's an anti-Roman tract that used coded language to tell Christians that God would destroy Rome's evil empire. Bass calls belief in the Rapture a 'completely invented theology' and 'one of the most wildly successful heresies in the history of Christianity.' A belief system that says God will end the world through violence offers no incentive for a political or religious leader to avoid war — or backtrack when events spiral out of control, she says. 'In the framework of this 'end times' theology, destruction is always a sign that God is working and is about to return,' Bass says. 'In this theology, the worse things become, the closer it is to the end. There is no motivation to do good, care for the poor, make sure that wars don't happen, and care for the planet.' Why prophecy and politics don't mix Apocalyptic visions about the end of the world are common in many religions. And it's not unusual for a political leader to invoke God before going to war. But when citizens in a democracy believe political leaders are divinely appointed and driven by prophecies, it leaves no room for debate, Tisby says. 'There's a sort of fundamentalism to it all,' he says. 'It's unbending, unchanging and it can't be critiqued because its divine. Who are we to question? 'Any uncritical, unyielding support of a political actor, no matter what the conflict, is dangerous,' he says. If this is part of the dynamic that guides the US' future actions in the Middle East, it could lead to another final question. Many critics of Iran say it is a theocracy led by someone who reduces the world to a clash between good and evil and whose foreign policy is driven by apocalyptic religious myths. What if America's clash with Iran is driven in part by some of the same religious forces? John Blake is a CNN senior writer and author of the award-winning memoir, 'More Than I Imagined: What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew.'
Atlantic
25-04-2025
- Business
- Atlantic
The Return of Stagflation
I remember the little stickers on restaurant menus. In the 1970s, it cost much more to print a menu than it does today. Restaurants did not change them often. When prices rose, they'd retain their old menu—but affix little stickers with the new, handwritten prices atop the previous ones. When prices rose especially rapidly, the stickers accumulated in stubby columns rising up from the menu. A bored child might scratch off all the stickers with a fingernail—and, like a young archaeologist, reveal a lost world. The term that came into use to describe the era was stagflation: stagnation plus inflation. Until recently, it seemed a relic of the disco era, but the economic chaos of Donald Trump's second presidency has resurfaced the old word. Stock markets are warning of a recession. Bond markets are anticipating inflation. Perhaps one market is wrong, or the other, or both. More likely, they portend the return of a half-forgotten nightmare. From 1969 to 1982—just 13 years—the United States suffered four recessions. Three were severe. Two were both severe and protracted. Recoveries were comparatively feeble. Even during the recessions, prices kept rising. The era's economic turmoil unnerved Americans. Mass-market best sellers such as The Late Great Planet Earth prophesied the imminent end of the world in a biblical apocalypse. Americans absorbed a secular version of the end-of-the-world obsession from books such as The Limits to Growth, which claimed that humankind was overconsuming almost every natural resource and had no choice but to strictly ration the pitiful remains. In his famous 1979 speech, which came to be known as the 'malaise' address, President Jimmy Carter warned: 'The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.' Conversation everywhere, the historian Theodore White wrote, was 'stained and drenched in money talk, by what it cost to live or what it cost to enjoy life.' Especially outside the upper classes, people 'winced and ached. Some mysterious power was hollowing their hopes and dreams, their plans for a house or their children's college education.' What could they do? How could they recover? 'Faith in one's own planning was dissolving—all across the nation,' White wrote. 'The bedrock was heaving.' Trump's tariffs are like a hundred self-inflicted oil shocks, all arriving at the same time. The unease destabilized American politics. Carter lost his reelection bid in 1980; his predecessor, Gerald Ford, likewise had been voted out in 1976. Richard Nixon might well have survived Watergate (as Trump has survived his many scandals) had the investigation not unfolded during the most miserable American economy since the Great Depression. In House elections, the party of the president suffered unusually heavy losses: 49 seats in 1974; 26 in 1982. David Frum: Sorry, Richard Nixon Finally, the stagflation was choked to an end in the fourth and climactic recession of 1981–82. In late 1983 and '84, the U.S. economy rebounded powerfully—and this time, the inflation did not return. Stagflation vanished into history. The economy has seen its share of tumult in the 21st century: the Great Recession, a recent bout of high inflation. But it's been a very long time since Americans have felt recession and inflation at once. In January, President Trump inherited an economy that was growing strongly. Unemployment was low. Inflation had been restrained below 3 percent. If the new Trump administration had just left well enough alone, his second presidency could have coasted to economic success. Instead, Trump single-handedly plunged the economy into chaos. In the '70s, the economy was disrupted because the price of oil surged, a result of the major oil producers' coordinated restriction of supply. Trump's tariffs are like a hundred self-inflicted oil shocks, all arriving at the same time. Unless Trump changes course immediately, everything will soon cost more, possibly a lot more: groceries and automobiles, industrial magnets and tableware, mobile phones and children's shoes. Trump and his surrogates promise that from this upheaval will emerge a new era of American industry. Tariffs on foreign products will induce investors to build factories in America. Even if this promise came true, the result would still be a bad bargain. Tariff-sheltered industries tend to produce inferior goods at higher prices, and have little incentive to do otherwise. If the goods were competitive, after all, no tariff would be needed or wanted. But Trump's tariffs will not induce much factory-building. Who'd invest in a factory to produce made-in-America goods at higher-in-America prices unless assured that foreign competition would be excluded for a long time, if not forever? Trump's tariffs are here today, gone tomorrow, maybe back the day after that, maybe not. On some days, Trump vows to keep his tariffs in place permanently; on others, he speculates about trading them away for hypothetical future deals. Disadvantages and uncertainties compound: The tariff-protected American car of the future Trump fancies, for instance, will be assembled from steel, glass, plastic, fabric, and electronics, all of them tariffed too: at 10 or 20 or 125 percent, or whatever other random number pops up on Trump's Truth Social feed that morning. No American business—no business that serves the American market—will commit to any capital expenditure under these conditions. If Trump's tariffs last for any length of time, the result will be a vast disinvestment instead. The worst of the pain may not be felt immediately. Trump advertised the tariffs many weeks in advance, opening an opportunity for businesses to stockpile inventories. Sooner or later, however, those stockpiles will dwindle. Consumers will face higher prices or outright shortages. Businesses will suffer diminished demand. Workers will be laid off. The only early hope is that the president who set the maelstrom going will panic and try to stop the wreckage. But he seems just as likely, perhaps more so, to make that damage worse. The presidents of the '70s desperately gambled with extreme measures of state control to stop inflation without aggravating unemployment. Nixon imposed wage and price freezes in 1971 and '73; in 1977, Carter proposed an elaborate scheme of controls, taxes, and subsidies across the energy sector. These experiments sometimes delivered a short bump in the polls—but quickly presented their authors with a dilemma: State control begets economic distortions, which demand more state control. Either the would-be controller advances toward ever greater political command of the economy—or the would-be controller is quickly forced to retreat in failure and embarrassment. The grim fact about stagflation is that—once stumbled into—it is very hard to escape. Donald Trump has no grasp of history. The people around him are afraid to teach it to him. So Trump's trade war could well lead him, as the economy sinks, to ever more interventionism of his own: subsidies and tariff exemptions for favored companies; payouts to farmers and other constituencies; political warfare against the independence of the Federal Reserve. The most dangerous temptation that Trump may face is to impose some form of capital controls to stop investors from dumping dollar assets. Trump's trade war has driven a sell-off of U.S. Treasury bonds, which raised interest rates in the United States. Regimes moving toward protectionism sometimes try to block investors from rushing to the exits. The United States has more capacity than most to try such measures. Among their many costs, they dissuade investors from ever trusting your country again. The grim fact about stagflation is that—once stumbled into—it is very hard to escape. Raise interest rates to curb the inflation, and the stagnation gets worse. Rev the economy to overcome stagnation, and the inflation gets worse. Policy makers find themselves in the predicament of a motorist trying to execute a three-point turn in a too-narrow roadway: They can never back up or advance far enough to make any progress. The whole incomprehensible system that Trump is building—haphazard, anti-market, punishing to consumers and businesses alike—will have to be rewritten by the next president, or maybe junked by the next Congress if it has the votes to override Trump's veto and reclaim the legislature's constitutional power over tariffs and trade. But whenever the government gets serious about repair and recovery, Americans will face more difficulties emerging from their tariff-caused stagflation than their oil-shocked predecessors did half a century ago. Impose a tariff on bananas: The price will rise; demand will drop. As the drop in demand is felt, investment will decline in the boats and warehouses that bring the bananas to market. Fewer banana trees will be planted; the people who work on banana plantations will find other jobs; the capital committed to banana production will be redeployed. Lift the tariff on bananas, and the process will not immediately reverse. The memory of the arbitrary tariff will shape behavior for some time afterward. Recommitting the capital, rehiring workers, replanting trees, reinvesting in warehouses and boats—none of that will be instant. Banana prices may remain elevated in the tariff-imposing country for some while after it mends its ways. And as it goes with individual commodities, so it goes with the entire global system of production and trade. The economic crisis of 2025 started in the mind of one man, but Trump's tariffs are dislocating planet-wide networks of trade. The dislocation has already sliced trillions of dollars from the value of U.S. corporations. Even if Trump ceased his trade actions tomorrow, the possibility that he could resume them would depress the value of almost every U.S. and international company. Foreign governments, faced with Trump's bullying, have retaliated in ways that dislocate trade further. They may or may not end their retaliation when Trump has had enough. By then, many of them will have formed new trading arrangements that bypass the United States. Trump will demand cheaper money from the Federal Reserve. He has already threatened to fire the Fed chairman, Jerome Powell, for recently declining to lower interest rates. Potential politicization of the Fed will frighten bondholders and push interest rates up—depressing the value of stocks, discouraging new investment, and raising the cost of mortgages, auto loans, and student debt. Ultimately, the end of the crisis will depend on the actions of hundreds of millions of people across dozens of trading nations. Only if and when they recover their trust in the United States will the U.S. and world economies fully recover from the breach of trust Trump has created. How long will it take? No one knows. As a businessman, Trump was notorious for operating in bad faith. He has been accused of deceiving customers, employees, investors, and creditors. Before he pivoted to politics, his bank of choice was one known for its relationship with Russian oligarchs and alleged money launderers. He repeatedly drove his properties into bankruptcy, leaving creditors, investors, and employees to bear the costs of his failure. As a politician, Trump vowed to 'make America great again' with the same predatory methods he used in business. He does not appear to believe in mutually beneficial transactions. The only way he feels confident that he prevailed is if the other party suffers. His plan for enriching America was predicated on dominating and wronging others. Plans like that seldom work even at the start, and never work for long. Good faith is the beginning of success for nations as well as individuals. Trump's bad faith and poor choices once ruined only those who made the voluntary personal or corporate decision to do business with him. But no one can choose to sit out Trump's trade war. The casualties are already accumulating.
