Guest Interview Joel Rosenberg - Skip Heitzig

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Joel Rosenberg is a very interesting person. I've known him for many years now. What you need to know, if you don't already, is he is a New York Times best selling author. So to be an author is one thing. To write a book is not easy. To be a best selling author is another thing. To be a New York Times best selling author over and over and over again is in, like, a league all of your own. And that's the league that he is in. He has written if, I'm not mistaken, 16 novels. Is that correct, Joel? 16 or--

Thereabouts.

Thereabouts. So he doesn't even know himself. He's written so many-- so 16, like, political thriller novels. And they have sold 15 million copies.

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And he has written a new book, that we're going to kind of get into a little bit, called enemies and allies. Let me just show that-- zoom in on that, baby. Enemies and Allies by Joel Rosenberg. So if I can get a friend of mine to endorse one of my books, I'm really happy. The front endorsement on this book is former Vice President Mike Pence, so he gets those kind of people to endorse him. And I'm just really glad he's here. And I'm glad he's my friend. Would you please welcome our guest, Joel Rosenberg?

[APPLAUSE] Joel, you're back. We're glad you are.

15 years ago this month, you and I and Lenya met at a PF Chang. And then you had me come speak, and that was the beginning of a very fun relationship, just like the end of Casablanca. It all comes back to the Middle East and North Africa. I'm just going to let that line--

He's speechless.

--lie around there a while. Just kind of let that simmer.

Don't what to say.

So Joel, we have just-- commemorated would be a better word than celebrated. We have commemorated and remembered 20 years of the horrific events that happened, September 11, 2001. I want you to take us back 20 years, because there's a number of things about that that I think are important. First of all, you wrote about that possibility before it actually happened. You wrote about an airplane being hijacked and flown into an American city before 9/11 happened.

So take us back to 20 years ago. What were you doing? What were you thinking-- maybe even before then, what you were writing?

Sure. Well, In January of 2001, I began writing my first political thriller. It was called The Last Jihad. Jihad is a term from the Quran. It means holy war. And the first pages of that novel puts you inside the cockpit of a jet plane that's been hijacked by radical Islamist terrorists. And it's coming in on a kamikaze attack mission into an American city. Now, there are differences for what really happened. It was a Gulfstream 4 business jet. It wasn't a commercial airliner. The city is Denver, Colorado, not New York or Washington or Pennsylvania.

But that's how the book begins. And on the morning of September 11, I was finishing that novel, which begins with that attack. And then my fictional American president is waging war against radical Islamist terror cells all across the Middle East, and then decides he needs to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. And that's the book-- I was in the final chapters of that book on the morning of September 11, in the townhouse where Lynne and the boys and I were living at that time.

Where at that moment, Flight 77 was being hijacked from Dulles Airport, turned around, flown over our house, and into the Pentagon. And the book didn't come out until the next year, so those who say I'm prophetic-- no, if I was prophetic, it would have come out the year before. But there's no question that I-- even though I was writing a piece of entertainment, It was based on this fear I had that if American leaders misunderstood the nature and threat of evil, the evil of radical Islamism, that they could be blindsided.

That what Israel faces every day in the Middle East-- those forces were coming to the United States, if American leadership didn't understand it and take preventive actions. And obviously, it was too late.

You contend, when you wrote that-- just back to that-- you thought, what if we took the threats from our enemies seriously. What could happen? And you, in writing the book at least, took it seriously. In a fictional stance-- but nonetheless, you decided that if all the threats leveled against America by some of these groups actually happened, it might look like this. Do you feel like we as a nation did not take it seriously until that moment?

Well, I think that's self-evident, right-- I mean, look, to misunderstand the nature and threat of evil is to risk being blindsided by it. So we were blindsided on December 7, 1941. We didn't understand the threat of imperial Japan. And there was-- mixed in with some racism, that we thought, well, even if they hate us, there's a whole Pacific between us and them. There's no way the Japanese can come get us. And then came the day of infamy.

And obviously, we were blindsided by Saddam Hussein's invasion on August 2, 1990, of Kuwait. Everybody said, oh no, he's just saber rattling. He's trying to drive up the price of oil. Yeah, he was massing hundreds of thousands of troops, but everybody in Washington was saying, no, he's just he's just flexing his muscles. It's not going to really happen. So-- and then, 9/11. And if you look-- and if you read the 9/11 commission report, which I have, you see all the data there. It's eerily understandable this was coming.

And I would say this. We learned an awful lot because of what happened, but the conclusion of the 9/11 commission report was that the attacks of 9/11 were not so much a failure of intelligence-- because when you look and you see all that we actually did have. We just weren't connecting the dots. But it wasn't so much a failure of intelligence as of imagination. We just couldn't imagine that people would turn a plane into a missile, killing themselves and everyone in there and everyone in the target.

Like that-- that was not something that our leadership thought was possible. And my fear-- and one of the reasons I wrote Enemies and Allies, is 20 years later, al-Qaeda is not our most serious threat. It's a threat. It's still out there, but the Iranian regime is the biggest threat. And they don't want to simply take out towers. They want to take out cities. They want a second Holocaust. They want to take out all of Israel. That's what they've said. Israel is the little Satan in their view, and they want to wipe us off the map.

They're on the record. And then-- but the United States-- or Israel is only the little Satan in that equation. In the view of the Supreme Leader of Iran, the United States is the great Satan. And they want to take out whole American cities. And this-- once you understand why he wants that, you begin to realize that no nuclear deal that you could negotiate with him is going to dissuade him from doing what he thinks is bringing about the end of days as we know it, and his savior and messiah, and a global Islamic caliphate or kingdom.

And that's-- but if you don't understand these things, you run the risk of getting blindsided. And this is a huge problem. Look, we were blindsided by the Taliban. Leaders in Washington didn't understand that you could be nice to them. They don't want to be nice to us. That's not the way they see the world. They're not looking for our approval. They believe that the wind is at their back, that Allah is on their side.

And they took down the Soviet Union, the Soviet Empire, in Afghanistan in the '70s, or the '80s. And now, they've taken out the great Satan, and it's open season now. That's how they and all of their colleagues in the region see it.

So fast forward 20 years from September 11, 2001, to now. A lot of changes have happened in the Middle East, not all negative, some positive. So kind of give us a rundown on some of those changes 20 years later.

OK, so-- the big-- there's the good, the bad, and the ugly. Let's start with the ugly. Iran is the biggest threat-- not the people, but the regime. And barely even the regime, as the Supreme Leader and his inner circle. They are what I call apocalyptic Islamists. They want to bring about genocide, to bring about their end of days scenario. So you thought that Christians were the only ones with an eschatology, but we're not. Muslims have it, too. Jews have it, too.

But what he has, the Supreme leader, has is a genocidal apocalypse. Jesus said in Matthew 24:14, this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end shall come. So in other words, our focus is on making sure everyone is at least heard that Jesus is the King and the Messiah and the only way to heaven. And once everyone has at least heard, then the Lord will come back. That's our objective.

His objective is to kill as many people as possible, and then he believes the end of days and the end of time will come. That's the ugly. The mere bad is that Washington doesn't seem to understand it 20 years later-- some in Washington, and in other capitals too, so that's bad. And then the good-- so yeah, there's a lot of hope in this book. You just have to maybe skip the first quarter, and move-- I don't want you to skip it. But if you can't, it's too much to bear, know that the hope builds as you go.

And we have four Arab-Israeli peace agreements, normalization agreements, just at the end of 2020. We haven't had a single Arab-Israeli agreement in a quarter of a century-- a generation-- and now we've got four. And I think more are coming. We have Arab leaders-- like President el-Sisi in Egypt has rescued his country from the reign of terror of the Muslim Brotherhood. Literally, an Arab Muslim and his team removed a radical Islamist terror regime from Egypt, the largest Arab country in the world-- 100 million people, liberated them.

It was messy. It was difficult. It was painful. But they did it, on their own. They didn't need the Marines. They didn't ask for the 82nd Airborne Division. They did it on their own. And then President el-Sisi invited me to bring a delegation of evangelical Christian leaders to get to know him. And lo and behold, what did he tell us-- right, you were there. He said he's rebuilt every church that the Muslim Brotherhood burned down destroyed, damaged.

And he was building the largest church cathedral in the history of the Middle East, and he wanted us to come back and be there as he handed it over as a gift to the Christians of Egypt on Christmas Eve as a present. That's a Muslim doing this. That's not normal. That sounds like a novel, but it was true. And we saw it come to pass.

OK, so you just touched on Christians in the Middle East. And that's the birthplace, right, of not just Islam and Judaism, but Christianity. So how is the church doing in these regions?

Well, it's been a very dark 20 years, if you just measure it from 9/11 to now. We have seen war. We have seen genocide. The ISIS caliphate, of course, arose in Iraq and in Syria, and was literally designated-- branded by Congress, by the Obama administration, by the UN as committing genocide against Christians-- a liquidation of Christians in those countries.

And even more Muslims were being slaughtered than Christians. And another minority religious group called the Yazidis, they were being slaughtered. Many people were being crucified. They were being beheaded. They were being burned in cages live on YouTube. I mean, it was just horrific. Egyptian Christians were beheaded on the shores of the Libyan desert-- Libyan beaches on the Mediterranean. So it's just been an ugly, ugly season.

I think it's-- unfortunately, but I guess-- let's just to keep the hope-- the biblical perspective, Jesus warns us that the closer we get to his return-- right, wars, rumors of wars, insurrections, revolutions, check, check, check, check, check-- natural disasters, economic catastrophes, the rebirth of Israel, but also the persecution of the Christians, and of course, apostasy and betrayal. And we've seen all of it in the Middle East.

And yet, remember, those are birth pangs. Right? Now, Lynn and I-- well, Lynn had four children. Like, I was there-- I was there in the hospital with her. You know, all the women-- I don't want a revolt. OK, but I'm just saying-- the birth pangs, that's the image Jesus gives us. And what he means is contraction and release. So you expect something really horrible and bad and painful, and then I'll release. And you know, I remember my hand being held as I watched the monitor.

And I'm like-- no, it's OK, dear, it's all about you. And it was. But you know-- and then as you get closer to the moment that you want, that pain gets more, and you have less blood in your hand, and you're-- but you know, you're not in the most pain. So he said, straining the credulity of-- as bad as it's been, we're at the moment of a release in the Middle East.

We're seeing peace break out. We're seeing religious freedom being expanded. Christians are inviting-- or Muslim leaders, kings, and Crown Princes, are inviting a Jewish evangelical Israeli citizen with two kids that have served in the Israeli army into their palaces for their first time in human history. That's not normal, that's release. But what are we heading to? We're heading to our worst set of contractions-- longer, more painful. And this will be the cycle until Christ comes back for us.

Wow, that's a great answer. You just you got us into a lot of eschatology there, which I want to get back to. But I want to kind of throw you into the muddy waters here, of something that recently happened. How significant is America's pulling out of Afghanistan recently, as it has happened, and having the same group-- at least ideologically, the same group-- in charge. What does that mean in terms of future terrorism being staged from there? What do we have to worry about?

I don't want to be political, but Ezekiel 33 talks about being watchmen on the walls. If you see danger coming to a nation, you need to say it. This is a catastrophe. To surrender a country you've already won on the eve of 9/11-- 20th anniversary-- betraying all the blood, sweat, tears, hard work, sacrifice of all of our forces-- every man, every woman who lost a life, who laid down their life, who lost limbs, who lost eyes, who invested because their country asked them to protect us, and liberate that country, and stabilize it for 20 years.

This is really, really bad. To leave Americans behind enemy lines, to leave our allies, to leave the Afghan citizens, who-- some of them a, whole generation grew up only knowing freedom, messy though it was. And it was stable. It wasn't beautiful. I've been to Afghanistan. I've met tribal Muslim leaders. I have met with Afghan Christians. It's not like we liberated Paris from the Nazis, and you're, like, oh, it's Paris. Let's sit on the Champs-Elysees and have a cup of coffee and a baguette.

Right, it's Afghanistan. It's not pretty. It's poor and it's troubled. But it was stable. Americans weren't dying in recent years. Afghan troops were dying as they fought. But anyway, this is bad. And it's bad because it's going to create a new vacuum, a new wasteland, that terror groups can settle in and use as launching pads against us and our allies. But it's worse, because it shows American surrender. And it has emboldened our enemies.

And it's rattling our allies, right at the moment when had-- we were going the other direction. We were strengthening our allies and putting the fear of God in our enemies over the last several years. And now, it's all been flipped.

For generations, people have talked about-- or for decades, I should say, people have talked about, we've got to get out of Afghanistan, year after year, administration after administration. Do you think we should have stayed?

Well, yes, but I don't mean with 100,000 soldiers. I mean, you know-- so again, I'm not trying to be partisan, because I have a lot of criticisms of President-- or of Donald Trump as he was running. I'll just put my cards on the table. I was a never Trumper. Right, I wrote 38 reasons he would be a catastrophe for the country.

And you told him this in the Oval Office.

Well, that's true.

That's another story.

That's another story. Let's just say-- just for that point, how often, Skip, do you think that the term Never Trumper was used with President Trump in the Oval Office, because judging from the look in his eye, not that often. Not that often-- but unlike some of my Never Trumper friends, I believe in looking at a person, at a leader, and seeing what are they doing right, what are they doing wrong. If they need to be criticized for wrong things, do it respectfully, but don't hold your tongue-- unless the Lord tells you.

But if they're doing something right, you have to give them credit. Give them credit where credit is due, honor where honor is due. This what Paul says to the church at Rome. So I saw Trump doing a lot of things I didn't expect him to do. He was keeping promises I didn't expect him to make, to keep. And he was having successes that I didn't see. Now, it was messy.

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OK, it was messy. I wasn't a fan of the four AM tweet storms against Republicans, instead of maybe against Putin or the Iranians.

But you were in favor of an embassy in Jerusalem.

I was. I was. And I talked to him about that. I told him why I had been a Never Trumper, and I told him why I was no longer that, and all this list of things that he was doing right. But it was interesting, and my point is President Trump wanted to pull all of our forces out of Afghanistan from day one of his presidency. But he did listen to his generals. He listened to Pompeo, he listened to Pence, who told him if you pull the Jenga stick out at the wrong moment, the wrong time, you've all played-- what happens? It collapses.

Mr. President, you don't want to be the guy that just pulls out a Jenga stick, just because it seems like-- just because you're tired of the fight. And he listened, and he drew down cautiously. And then he would stop and he would assess. And it was going well. I didn't agree with his desire to pull all forces out, because I felt a stabilizing force-- 2,500 people, 7,500 NATO forces-- was bolstering and giving confidence to this young and still struggling to get their sea legs-- there's no sea anywhere near them, but the Afghan army.

But look at what happened. When you pull us out, they got-- they freaked out. And they lost their nerve, and everything collapsed. And to President Trump's credit, he didn't actually do that, because he was measured. And I think he does-- again, I disagreed with his objective. Why? We still have forces in Germany, in South Korea, in Japan. It's been a long time since World War II or the Korean War, but why-- because they're stabilizing forces, and they're rapid reaction forces if you need them.

And they've been there forever. And they give courage to the local government. I think that was the right way to go, but nobody asked.

Can you put a thought in my head, when you talked about telling him that you were a Never Trumper. So when you were in the White House and you are introduced as Joel Rosenberg, take us through that conversation.

Well, I had had lunch with Vice President Pence. He and Karen have been friends for many years, back to when he was in the House of Representatives. He and his wife were-- they were readers of my novels, so that's how we got to know each other. And when he became Vice President, I used to bring him his and her copies, because-- of the new novels-- because he was always telling me that, well, I haven't read your book yet, because Karen came to the house, the governor's mansion, whatever, and Karen took off with it.

I said you got a lot of problems, Mike-- Mr. Vice President. I'm going to bring you two books every time. And anyway, that was good. So we were having lunch to talk about all these meetings you and I and others were having with these high level Arab leaders, because he and the president were finalizing the Middle East peace strategy. And they were looking for nuances, what are we missing. What should be in the strategy?

OK, and I described this in the book. But then he said, at the end of lunch-- hey, would you like to meet the president? Or have you ever met the president? I'm like, I think we know each other well enough to know, no, I've been kept a long way away. So he goes, come with me. So we walk through the West Wing, and we open the door, and we're in the-- we're in the Oval Office. Now, I have written so many scenes in that room. I'd never been there. I lived in Washington DC for 24 years, but I was always on the wrong side of whoever was in office.

[LAUGHTER] You laugh, but it wasn't your resume. You would-- so the first person I see is Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State. He'd been a long time friend, and a fan and reader of the novels-- good, good to see him. The next person I saw was John Bolton, the National Security Advisor. He was a friend for a long time-- doesn't read the novels, but that's unconditional love, Skip. You don't--

Yeah.

You can't expect everybody to read them. And then Pence introduced me to the President. So we sat down and honestly, it was bizarre. President Trump is behind the Resolute Desk. I'm sitting directly across from him-- Pence, Pompeo, Bolton. I should have been thinking of some profound thing to say. But what I was thinking was the little Sesame Street ditty I'd grown up with-- one of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn't belong. Like, what am I doing here? So Trump says--

Did you sing that?

I didn't. It was an internal monologue.

That's good.

Internal only. Fortunately, I have some regulator at 54 years old. Anyway he says, so tell me a little bit about yourself, Joel. And I'm, like, like Marcia Brady on the-- never mind, it's a long-- half this audience doesn't even know who Marcia Brady was. Anyway, but the other half is getting it.

Yes, we are.

The point is, I didn't know what to say. I hadn't been on the schedule to meet with him. But he said-- wait, wait, wait, wait. And he turns back to Pence, and he says, Mike, did you just call Joel an evangelical as you were introducing him? Yes, Mr. President. Joel, are you an evangelical? Yes, Mr President. But your name is Rosenberg, isn't that Jewish? I said, yes, Mr. President. My father's side is Jewish, my mom's not-- well, how can you be Jewish and believe in Jesus?

And I was, like, Lord, you've got to be kidding me. That's the first question in the Oval Office for the first time? I'm going to explain to President Trump how to be a Jewish follower of Jesus? Get out. That's a Seinfeld reference, OK. We're moving on. That was very exciting, and whatever we talked about from that point forward was very fun. No, we talked about the Middle East and all, but it was pretty cool.

One of the things-- my new book at the time was The Persian Gamble, and he said, give me the elevator pitch on Persian Gamble. And I said, OK, what if the Iranians take the $150 billion that your predecessor gave to them for the Iran nuclear deal, and they go shopping in North Korea to buy 6 fully operational nuclear warheads, and then try to get them back to Iran without nobody noticing. And he goes, oh, well, that's scary. I said, well, yeah. Yeah-- and he looks out the window into the Rose Garden for a moment. Everything's quiet.

Then he turns back, he goes, how do you know they're not trying to do that already?

[LAUGHTER] I said, well, Mr. President, I'm counting on you and the men in this room to make sure my books never come true. I mean, come on.

That is beautiful. Joel, I want you to do a yeoman's task here. I want you to explain to us Islam in a nutshell, because it's not homogeneous. There's not just one belief system. It's divided into two branches, but then it's fractured even from there. So--

OK-- 1.8 billion Muslims. OK, they're divided into two houses-- the House and the Senate. No, they're divided into this the Sunnis, that's the majority, about 80% or so, and then the Shias, that's about 15% to 20%. Now, the Sunnis believe that the authority-- the authority, spiritually, for Islam, after Muhammad died, devolved or transferred to the disciples that were around Muhammad, and that they were in charge of carrying out and building upon his legacy.

The Shias, the minority sect, said-- no, no, no, no. You have to be a blood relative of Muhammad. This is a special person. And so they had a series of Imams. The first imam, the second imam-- the 12th. It goes up to the 12th. And the first Imam was actually a blood relative, but married also the daughter of Muhammad-- so Ali. So this is the split. And Sunnis think that the Shias are heretics, and the Shias think that the Sunnis are heretics.

And that's the broad definition. I will just say one other thing on that, and that is there's been a lot of polling and a lot of study of what Muslims think over the years. And I've studied a great deal of this. 90% of Muslims in these polls, consistently, no matter how you ask it, don't believe in using violence to achieve their political and religious objectives. OK, but those who do are about 7% to 10%. OK, that's what we call radical Islamism.

OK, and you say-- well, OK, so the vast majority of Muslims are not violent. Exactly. But the problem is that 10% may not use violence themselves, but they support it. And that's the pool that you would recruit from. And 10% of 1.8 billion is 180 million. Now, if you put them all in their own country, the Islamic Republic of Radicalstan, for example, it would be the ninth largest country on the planet, larger than Russia. And so this is why the threat is so big.

Yes.

It's not the majority, by any stretch, of Muslims, but it's a big universe of--

I want you to say that again, because that was significant, because most people that you talk to, you engage in this conversation, they will say, yeah, but it's a small minority of Muslims that believe that.

It is.

But that small minority is--

A big number, 180 million--

Wow.

--thereabouts. And so this is the pool from which Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, and Muslim Brotherhood, and the Taliban, and al-Qaeda, and ISIS, and all these terrorist groups-- this is the group that they're recruiting from. That's why you think-- why have we been in Afghanistan for 20 years. Like, didn't we win like in month one? Yes, but this is the problem. They keep coming. They keep coming. And so it wasn't like you defeated the Nazis, and then they were in uniforms, and you destroyed their supply lines, and you destroy them enough, and then they gave up.

And the leader killed himself. And that's not what happened-- just more and more and more. And no matter how many we arrested, imprisoned, or killed, they've just kept coming. And that's why you can't get exhausted. They're trying to wait us out. And as I describe in the book, they have long time horizons, but when you have leadership in any country, particularly the world's only superpower, going-- we're tired, we're done, we don't want to play that game anymore. Well, wishing doesn't make it so.

Yeah-- Joel, back to September 11, 20 years ago, 15 of the 17 hijackers, I believe--

15 of the 19.

15 of the 19 were Saudi Arabian-- from Saudi Arabia. That country has radically changed, or at least is changing. Could you kind of bring us up to speed with that country in particular?

Sure. Well, I don't think there's any country more hated on 9/12 than Saudi Arabia. Now, there's no evidence that I've seen that says that the government actually was trying to do this, but were Saudi nationals doing this? Yes, Osama bin Laden, Saudi, right. 15 of the 19 hijackers, Saudi. Now, they weren't living in Saudi Arabia at the time. They were on the run. The Saudi government was trying to capture them. But still, that's what we have imprinted.

And the culture that they came out of was very radicalized. So even though the government wasn't saying, go blow up Americans, they were just trying to sell us oil-- but they were funding mosques and clerics and schools that were deeply anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel. And that was a huge problem. And all that oil money was funding this type of thinking and teaching all over the planet.

But Saudi Arabia is undergoing a tectonic change of thinking, of attitude, of desire for direction. And partly, that's generational. The current crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is certainly the most complicated and consequential leader in the Arab world, but he's also the most controversial. But we sat together, and we asked him, where were you on 9/11. We thought that be an interesting question. We happened to be sitting with him on September 10 of 2019. That was our second trip to the kingdom at his invitation, that was kind of amazing.

Again, first evangelical delegation, first Christian delegation ever invited to meet with the leaders of Saudi Arabia in the 300 years that the Saud family has controlled the peninsula. And that was November of 2018. And then-- they didn't hate us. They asked us to come back, to keep the conversation going at the highest levels-- the Crown Prince and his inner circle. All that to say-- we sat with him on 9/10 in 2019, and said, where were you-- 20, you know, or whatever it was-- 19 years ago tomorrow, or 18 years ago tomorrow.

And he said, I was 16 years old. My father was the governor of the Riyadh city and province, the capital of Saudi Arabia. And my mother was watching television, and she started yelling for us to come running to the television. And we saw what was happening. And he said instantly, and I describe this in the book-- instantly, I just thought, oh my gosh, Islam is defamed forever. I will never be able to travel and admit that I'm a Muslim.

Wow.

This was humiliating, he said, for him and his brothers and cousins and everybody. And then as in the days that emerged, where everybody knew it was bin Laden, and so many Saudis involved-- and he thought I'll never be able to travel. None of us will ever be able to travel and admit that we're Saudis, admit that we're Arabs, admit that we're Muslims. And it created anger, deep anger. And I won't use the language-- though, Tyndale, my publisher, let me quote him precisely. You were there.

He said, I want to-- my cousins and I, we decided to grow up and kick the tails of these people. Like, we are not going to put up with this. We are going to-- when we grow up, we're going to change everything, both in terms of fighting these types of extremist radicals, but also changing a society that he didn't want to be a part of. No movie theaters, no concerts-- if you were a Saudi who had money, which was basically everybody, and you wanted to go to a movie theater, the AMC, to watch Mission Impossible, or whatever? Where were you going?

You were going to Dubai and the United Arab Emirates. You were flying to London. If you wanted to see a play, you had to leave the country. Wanted to see a concert, you had to leave the country. And he said, this is just crazy, what the radicals have done to my country-- no, we're going to change this. When I grow up, we're going to change this. And he is changing it at breakneck pace. Now, he's made some huge mistakes as well. And that's why he's so controversial.

But it's a fascinating story. I think I spent more time on what's happening in Saudi Arabia in this book than anybody else. And there are literally biographies written about MBS in recent years, where the reporters have never met him. And they've never talked to him, and they've never interviewed him, and they've certainly never interviewed him on the record. Right, two Wall Street Journal reporters did an entire biography, never met him. New York Times reporter, never met him.

A senior CIA analyst, focused on Saudi Arabia his entire career, never met him. This is the only book that exists where he let us talk to him for two hours on the record. And it's in the book-- and then invited us back. And that two hour conversation was off the record, but I went back to the Crown Prince's office while I was writing-- I said, here's the transcript of our conversation. I'd like you to put all of it on the record, but let me know-- and that section, specifically on 9/11, had been off the record.

But they called me after the deadline. And they said-- his office said, yes, you can put this whole section on, and so-- in. He's a fast-- love him or hate him, you're going to meet one of the most consequential people in the entire world, and entire Arab world. And I'll tell you one other thing, because this is becoming a whole sermon and I didn't expect that, but I will say he told us on the record in our first trip, the Supreme leader of Iran is, quote, the New Hitler, unquote.

This is a guy who gets the threats in his neighborhood. Not everybody in our country does.

Wow. Yeah. Joel, first of all, you're a great author. You're a good writer.

Usually, I'm just making things up, in this case, it's--

[APPLAUSE]

No, it deserves applause. I mean, listen, you're a great fiction writer. But I got to say-- and I've talked to some people who've read all your books, who have said this is the best book you've ever written, the most consequential book you've ever written. You take us into meetings with heads of state-- MBS, Muhammad bin Zayed of the UAE--

Who told us-- you were there-- two years before he made peace with Israel with The Abraham Accords, he told us he was going to do it. We were like, what? But that was off the record at the time. We couldn't come out and say, another Arab country is going to make peace, the first in a quarter of a century. But then he did, and then they let us tell the back story-- the inside story, again, the only book that tells this story.

Yeah, so the Abraham Accords-- you knew that was coming. We knew that was coming, because he said that's what I'm aiming at, right?

Yeah.

So you meet el-Sisi of Egypt, King Abdullah of Jordan. They've divulged to you, Joel Rosenberg, some pretty substantive information and decisions. Why do you think you keep getting invited to these places, and that they want to kind of spill their soul in a sense, or ingratiate themselves to you?

Well, I don't look like Oprah, right-- so why would they. Yeah, it's a good question. Yeah, why would you want to, as an Arab Muslim monarch, or president, why would you tell what you think so honestly to no New York Times reporter, no Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, but to a Jewish evangelical Israeli Zionist. It's a good question. Well, you know, it starts with King Abdullah in Jordan. OK, because several years ago, I wrote a trilogy of novels about people trying to assassinate King Abdullah.

ISIS, in fact, was the terror group that nobody had actually heard of when I wrote about it, but two CIA directors said this is a thing. You should think about this, and you should write about it before anybody knows about it. OK-- President Obama, at the time, was calling ISIS a JV squad. But these two former CIA directors said no, no, no. There's a real-- this is serious. So I wrote a novel about ISIS is trying to assassinate King Abdullah by name. I made him an actual character in the book-- moron. Like, I live right across the river from him.

Like, that didn't-- that's not a good. They're trying to kill his wife. They're trying to kill his children. They blow up his palace, and they try to take over the kingdom of Jordan. So I wrote this series and, lo and behold, one of his advisors actually read the book, saw it in a bookstore in Heathrow, London, at the airport, picked it up, sat down-- was flying to Washington to meet the king, because the king was going to meet President Obama.

Starts reading the book-- like, oh, my gosh. Like, oh-- no, what, this is crazy. And when he gets to Washington, he goes to meet with the king, and he says Your Majesty, you have to read this book. Why-- because you're in it.

[LAUGHTER] What do you mean I'm in it? It looks like a novel. I know, but you're a character. What do you mean, I'm a character. Well, just read it-- it doesn't go well.

[LAUGHTER] So what happened is President Obama, for some reason-- I really don't understand it to this day, but I tell the story in the book, canceled his meeting with King Abdullah II when the King was already in Washington. And the press knew he was there, and he had other meetings, so he couldn't just dash off or slip out-- but suddenly, he had two days on his hands with nothing to do, and he read the book. And then he asked this guy, hey, who is this Rosenberg guy. He goes, I don't know. We'll Google him. I mean, you're in the intelligence business. Can't you figure it out. And the next thing I knew, Lynn and I were being invited to come to Amman for five days to meet with the king and his inner circle. And that set into motion a whole new life, because we-- do we have a few moments to tell the story?

Please, you should.

So this is interesting, because-- again, this is the first of any of these stories. And so we landed in Amman. They put us in a hotel. And they said, you've got a meeting for lunch. OK, it was not-- it said lunch on the schedule. It didn't say-- but we start driving through the streets. And I leaned over to Lynn, and I said, you know, it's funny. This route looks like the route that my character takes when the Jordanian intelligence takes him to meet the King.

And almost just as I say this, we come up over ridge, and there's the palace. And the gates are open, and all the soldiers-- and we're just driving in. And they take us into the palace. We didn't know we had lunch planned with him. We were going to go to Chick-fil-A. They don't have Chick-fil-A there, they have Kentucky Fried Chicken, but whatever. And so we end up sitting down with him, and have lunch. It's just him, the advisor that gave him the book, Lynn, and me.

Again, the Sesame Street ditty starts going through my-- so he says, Joel, I was-- I was thinking where would it be fun to meet you for the first time. He said, well, you did blow up my palace, so I thought we'd give you a little tour. You know-- don't want this to happen. No, I said-- and I got all flustered, I said, Your Honor, we really don't-- I mean, Your Majesty, you know-- I didn't know how to address him. And he said, now, I noticed Joel, that you made me a character by name.

I said, I know, and that was-- I didn't mean any disrespect. He goes, no, no, no, no, you wouldn't be here if I didn't see where you're going with it. But my staff and my advisors, they-- you've given them all fictional names. So I said, but I can see who's who. So I bought a bunch of your books, and I give them to my staff. And I say, here, this is you on page 47. You don't make it through the terror attack. You might want to read that.

[LAUGHTER]

Who knew he had a sense of humor?

Really great.

Now remember, this is a 43rd generation, direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad. That's-- and here we are-- and after lunch, he says, listen, I would love to keep talking. This is fascinating, but I have a military exercise, a live fire military exercise this afternoon. And it was supposed to be last week, when Vice President Biden was coming to visit me. But when the Secret Service learned that we were using real missiles and bullets to practice taking an ISIS town, they're like, I don't think that's going to be a good idea.

So we rescheduled it for this morning-- or this afternoon. Now, it's not-- I didn't reschedule it for you, but now you're here. And I thought maybe you and Lynn would like to go and see this exercise.

Wow.

Now, my wiseacre personality is, like, you know, we were going to go shopping. We were going to take a dip in the pool. No, I didn't-- I didn't. I was on my best behavior. I didn't say that. I said, sure. And he said, great, well, I'm going to put you in a helicopter and fly you guys out there. I've got to go home and change, he said. And then I'll meet you there. OK, now I said-- but Your Majesty, one thing before we go. You read the second book, actually, in the trilogy, so I brought you some copies of the first book. It's in my briefcase out in the other room.

Oh yeah, I love to have them. I said, can I just show you the first sentence of the first page of the series? He said, sure. And I showed him the sentence. The whole series begins with this sentence. I had never met a King before. That's how the book starts. And he laughed and he pulls out a pen, he goes, well, you have now.

[LAUGHTER]

And gave it back. So the last night, he invited me to a private dinner at his private palace, with just a couple of his personal friends. And we had 2 and 1/2 hours together, just talking about all kinds of things. But the first thing he said was, I just want to apologize, because the queen couldn't make it tonight. And I'm thinking, I'm in a Disney movie. I'm in a palace with the queen-- I mean with a king, the queen is not there. There must be some ball. There must be-- she's looking for glass slippers. I don't know, but it's just not my normal life.

And he goes, well, you know, we have a big day tomorrow. We've got-- I got-- the UN Secretary General is coming into town, and he's bringing the head of the World Bank. I said, well, that's-- yeah, that's a very busy day. Yes, I have some of those myself.

[LAUGHTER] He said, I got the Turkish prime minister coming in a few hours after that. That's going to be a whole thing. We've got an issue with them. And the Bulgarian foreign minister is coming in a few hours after that. And I'm thinking, why are you with me? But I didn't say it. But then he said, but we just got this call that Bono, the rock star, just landed at the airport, and he wants to go see one of the refugee camps. And the queen felt badly for him, so she's having a little dinner party for Bono.

That's so nice of her.

I'm thinking, why aren't you with Bono? I mean, why-- what are you doing with me? But it was a fascinating conversation. It capped off our trip. And at the end, I said, you know, I think we've learned so much, and our respect for you has grown. And I'm just wondering, I would think that-- there would be American Christian leaders who would have so much interest, even-- they love Israel, but they would have so much interest, and I think they ought to understand the perspective of an Arab monarch who has made peace with Israel, but doesn't see the world the same way as Israel or even as America. Would you be open to that?

And he said, yes, that'd be great. Why don't we put together an evangelical delegation together? And that was what set into motion these last several years, of six different delegations like this.

Wow. Wow, wow, wow.

[APPLAUSE] In all of these places, and with all of these conversations, whether it's with the president in the White House, or it's these leaders overseas-- in a diplomatic way, you are able to share your faith, or what you believe in, and it's received. It's well respected. I mean,

Well, usually, I bring you to do that. But I appreciate. it.

You don't shy away from it. And it goes well, and they become friends of yours, and they invite you back. That's a real-- that's a gift to be able to do that. It's like Daniel in the Old Testament, to be able to represent our God so effectively, and to have the ear of world leaders is-- it's pretty amazing.

Well, I appreciate it. I--

[APPLAUSE] Look--

Yeah.

I appreciate it, but you know, you know me well enough to know that there's really no reason for this except the sovereignty of God. I mean, we've been praying for our neighbors as we move to Israel, became citizens. We've been praying for the kings and all those in authority, because the Bible tells us to. We've been praying for open doors to get to know these nations, and these leaders. And God has really dramatically opened these doors to build these friendships.

I believe, as I know you do-- because I see it in your life, and Lenya's life, that every person in the world, regardless of what they believe, they deserve having a friend who knows and loves Jesus. And we think about that in terms of the poor, and we think about that of the powerless, but it's also true of the powerful. And it's also true of the rich, that they need somebody who loves Jesus in their life.

Now, it is harder for them to come to faith, because they don't feel that they have need, right. But they still-- Paul was told-- God spoke to Ananias to tell Paul, your mission-- and you don't have any choice to accept it or not, it wasn't a Mission Impossible movie. You're going to go and be my witness to Gentiles, kings, and the sons of Israel. That's interesting. I think we often skip over that. We think of Jews and Gentiles-- but right in the middle of that is kings. Why kings?

Now, Paul usually did it in chains, so it was a little bit different. We had motorcades. And that was fun, but a little bit different. But if the door opens, and you've been praying for it, should you go through it-- but sometimes, it's very controversial.

Yeah, back to this book Joel, Enemies and Allies-- who are our enemies, who are our allies, because when you talk about enemies of Israel, it's not like you have just one here and one there. They kind of banded together. They formed an alliance, which makes it even more dangerous.

Yeah, that's true. Well, I'm thinking of this both from-- first and foremost, from the American perspective, who are American enemies, and who are American allies? Certainly, I'm thinking of this from Israel's perspective. I mean, after all, if Iran's Supreme leader sees Israel as the Little Satan and the United States as the Great Satan, I have now branded a bullseye on my chest and on my back, right, by being a dual citizen.

But what's interesting is the Arab nations increasingly see the enemies the same way that Israel does, and the same way that, at least, the previous administration sees it in the United States. The forces of radical Islamism are-- and apocalyptic Islamism-- are our most serious allies-- or enemies, rather-- in the Middle East. Now, what's interesting is 20 some years of Israeli and CIA efforts to thwart Iran from getting actual, fully operational nuclear warheads has been successful.

They are dangerously close, possibly within months now, of getting there. But they haven't gotten there yet because of a lot of creative efforts. Like, I wouldn't recommend being a life insurance agent for a nuclear scientist in Iran. Like, it's not a good job. Like, you're going to have a lot of claims. And so it's a thing. These guys disappear. They wind up dead. And they wind up-- so it's not a good profession to be an Iranian nuclear scientist, or terror leader, because they just don't survive.

They don't-- you know, their life expectancy, not so long. And so that's why Iran hasn't gotten the bomb yet. OK, but what have they done-- and I describe this in the book. They are building alliances with countries that already have nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them-- Russia, China, North Korea. And increasingly, Iran is building an alliance with Turkey-- Turkey, which is a NATO ally, and is now shifting under its new leader, Erdogan, to the dark side, and is now buying weapons system from Russia, even though they're supposed to be a NATO, American ally.

So some people are crossing lines. And so these are the challenges. And that has some prophetic implications and overtones as well. I don't know that we'll have time to get into it tonight, but I'll just say-- in the book, towards the end, I say, well, what do evangelicals believe about the future of the Middle East?

And of course, not all evangelicals see the Bible exactly the same way. But I give of thumbnail sketches of Ezekiel 38 and 39, for example, where a Russian dictator is going to form an alliance with an Iranian dictator and a Turkish dictator and a Libyan dictator and a number of others to come against Israel in the last days of history. Now, are we there yet? No, I wouldn't say that. I'm more conservative about that. Do the chess pieces seem like they're being aligned on the board in such a way that's shockingly, eerily consistent with that prophecy?

Yes, I would say it feels that way. Is Vladimir Putin Gog? I think it's too early to draw that conclusion. Is he Gog-esque, yes. Yes, he could be cast in the movie, if we were casting for that role. I mean, so it's something to watch closely and-- but it's very, very dangerous. I don't think we're-- for all of our efforts in the last 20 years. I think we're in a more dangerous position today, even though we're in a release moment.

But another contraction is coming, and it's going to be brutal.

This book is available. We have several copies-- signed by Joel, by the way, many of them-- they're going to be for sale, I believe.

Maybe the ones without, because the signature devalues it, actually, and when you try to sell it on eBay, you're not--

Nobody's banking on selling it on eBay.

Well, I'll get you an unsigned.

OK, so they're available. I think-- are they in the foyer? Is that where they're at?

Yes.

Yes, in the foyer, they're there for sale. We have a good stock of them. But before you go, Joel, you do a service to the church by not just writing books like this and others, but you have a news source called All Israel News and All Arab News. I think everybody, if they want to know what's going on from a Christian perspective, from an evangelical perspective-- you want to know what's happening in the world, in the Middle East, you have a very great service. Tell us about that.

Well, I appreciate it. It's a non-profit, so-- actually, Skip serves on our board, as we help set up this thing, because we feel like there's so much media bias related to Israel, and related to what's going on in the Middle East. So many of the stories I tell really ought to have been reported and made a big deal by the mainstream media, you just barely even hear about it.

And it's not just what actually happens. It's-- what does that event, or that trend, what does it mean? And how do we pray about it-- that's something that All Israel News and All Arab News does. We have exclusive interviews, original reporting, and we also link to the credible stories every day that we think, yeah, these are other reporters, but we think they're doing a good job. And this is a story that everybody is talking about in the region. So I hope that's useful for you.

And I also encourage you to sign up for our free email newsletters. So the headlines just get sent directly to you. I mean, obviously, we want you to keep coming back, but you can just click-- you can just scan that every day if you want. Or if one really draws your interest, you can click on it, and it goes right to those stories. We have advertising on the site, but it's pretty limited, because we are a nonprofit. And what we want is to provide you with, essentially, one stop shopping of everything related to Israel and the region.

Now you say, how can it be one stop shopping if there's two sites-- well they're cross-linked. And the reason is this-- very quickly-- because of our Arab allies and contacts and sources and friends, both in the Muslim world, but also Arab Christians, some of them are just not ready to be, quoted, cited links to All Israel News. It's just a bridge too far for them. So out of respect for them, we built out the All Arab site. Both of them are fascinating. We consider them, like, two sections of your daily paper. And I hope they will be helpful.

We want to be your one stop shopping source, as it were.

Joel Rosenberg, thank you for coming tonight.

Thank you, it's an honor. I appreciate it.

I know you're busy, and I know you're traveling to a lot of places and meeting all sorts of people-- important people. Thank you for stopping in Albuquerque. And before we close the night, I'm going to have the worship team come back up. Would you lead us in prayer?

Sure, thank you. Father, thank you so much, that you tell us in the scriptures to pray for kings and those in authority. And when we do that, you answer those prayers. You tell us to pray for open doors. And sometimes you open up doors, we just-- well, some of them we were praying for, but some of them, they just blow us away. Lord, help us all pray more faithfully, and think bigger in how we pray, not because it's going to accrue to some benefit for us, but because we can be a witness to gentiles, to kings, to the sons of Israel.

Let us trust you, that you're a big God, and you love to do big things. And even if it's small in our life, just opening the door to talk to our best friend that has never wanted to talk about Jesus, or never wanted to look at the scriptures, or come to church, that's a big deal in many of our lives. Our parents, our kids who don't want to talk about you-- we pray for open doors there as well.

What do I pray for all of these leaders that we described here tonight, that you would have mercy on them and their families. Be gracious to them, Lord. May we have been a good witness to them. May this book be interesting to them as they read the book. And I just pray that this congregation would truly remain excited about what you're doing in this world. Yes, darkness is falling. But you're on the move. Your spirit's on the move.

More Muslims and more Jews are reconciling to each other, and more Muslims and more Jews are considering the claims of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and even coming to faith in Jesus Christ than ever before. And Lord, help us to use this release moment wisely--

Yes.

--because we know more contractions are coming. We ask these things in the name of our great King and our Savior, our God who's coming soon, the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

We hope you enjoyed this special service from Calvary Church. We'd love to know how this message impacted you. Email us at mystory@calvarynm.church.

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