While Jerry Falwell has passed from the scene, many of his fellow End-of-Times evangelical allies still enjoy unfettered access to and dangerous influence over President Bush, especially when it comes to Iran. As Focus on the Family head James Dobson reported on his radio show on Monday, he and a group of evangelical leaders met with Bush at the White House to discuss policies towards Tehran that keep all options on the table. As I wrote last year, that includes fulfilling the biblical prophesy of Armageddon.

"I was invited to go to Washington DC to meet with President Bush in the White House along with 12 or 13 other leaders of the pro-family movement. And the topic of the discussion that day was Iraq, Iran and international terrorism. I heard about this danger [from Iran] not only at the White House but from other pro-family leaders that I met during that week in Washington."

Dobson also used his radio show to compare Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler:

"The world looked at Hitler and just didn't believe him and tried to appease him the way we're hearing in Washington today. You know, the President seems to me does understand this."

In equating Ahmadinejad's Iran and Hiter's Germany, there is double irony for Dobson. After all, Dobson, Falwell, Gary Bauer, John Hagee and their allies in Christians United for Israel see tensions with Tehran leading to the Second Coming and final conflict in the Middle East foretold in Revelations, one in which 144,000 Jews are converted to Christianity while the rest are slaughtered. Meanwhile in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian mullahs look forward to their own Shiite End of Days, with the return of the "Twelfth Imam." In Shiite theology, the Second Coming of this last of the Prophet Muhammad's direct male descendents - the Mahdi - signals the imminent deliverance of the world from evil.
As I wrote in here and here, President Bush is seeking counsel from people who are trying to stoke the fires with Iran to accelerate a conflict they believe will bring the Second Coming of Christ. From protesting the removal of Israeli settlements in Gaza and the West Bank to actually trying to breed the mysterious "red heifer" which will signal the Second Coming, Falwell, Hagee, Dobson, Bauer and their ilk hope to foment war in the Middle East to fulfill biblical destiny.
For more background on the disturbing parallels between and the dangerous implications of the fundamentalist followers of George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, see:
"Iran, Bush and the Second Coming."
For a look at the people and purposes of the Christian Zionist movement, Christians United for Israel and their end-of-times red heifer project, see:
"666: Armageddon, Iran and Bush Foreign Policy."