Best-Selling Author of 'Last Jihad' Sees Catastrophe

Best-Selling Author of 'Last Jihad' Sees Catastrophe

Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2003

Joel Rosenberg says he's not a prophet, but with his best-selling book, “The Last Jihad,” he proved to be eerily prophetic. Written before 9-11, the novel opens with a kamikaze attack by an explosives-laden jet piloted by a suicidal terrorist.

Moreover, the villain is one Saddam Hussein, and the book focuses on the evil nature of the Iraqi dictator – long before President Bush labeled him as part of the axis of evil.

In an exclusive interview with NewsMax editors, Rosenberg spoke of how he came to write the book and how it presaged the horrific events of 9/11 and the war with Iraq that appears to loom ahead.

Noting that he had just completed a project for former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2000, he said that on a flight from Washington to New York with a former Netanyahu cabinet minister who “described to me a meeting he had with then KGB chief Vladimir Putin.

“The meeting was specifically called to discuss the threat of Russian nuclear scientists and Russian nuclear warheads falling into the hands of radical Islamic terrorist cells and terrorist regimes. A major note was made of Iran and Iraq,” Rosenberg recalled.

“As he described these meetings, I saw them as chilling, and I thought, number one, I prayed that scenario never unfolds, and number two, when I finish this assignment with Netanyahu I now have the premise of that political novel I’ve always wanted to write.

“In January of 2001, I sat down to write 'The Last Jihad.' The first page puts you in the cockpit of a hijacked aircraft coming in on a kamikaze attack mission into an American city. It was written nine months before 9/11.

“The trail of terror is traced back to Baghdad by the FBI and the CIA. Suddenly, the president and his top advisers … find themselves in a showdown with Saddam Hussein over weapons of mass destruction.”

You don’t get much more prophetic than that.

Obviously intimately familiar with his subject - he’s frequently asked if he has a CIA background - Rosenberg has a clear view of today’s confrontation with Saddam, which he sees as colossal facedown with sheer evil.

Speaking of what he called the critical need to understand the nature of evil – he said that “evil unchecked is a prelude to genocide. We saw that in the 20th century.”

“There was a catastrophic failure of leadership by the Clinton-Gore administration when they could have dealt decisively with Saddam Hussein and they didn’t. If Bill Clinton and Al Gore had accepted the intelligence that was given to them about al-Qaeda and accepted Sudan’s offer to give us Osama bin Laden on a silver platter three times, September 11 would never have happened.”

“What’s amazing to me is that the very people who criticize the Bush administration for not ‘connecting the dots’ prior to 9/11 now can’t even see the dots, much less connect them to Saddam Hussein.”

Those who counsel delay in dealing decisively with Saddam fail to understand that delay means giving him the time to complete his task to build, buy or steal nuclear weapons, and when he has them, he will use them.

"My great fear is that the last chapter of 'The Last Jihad' will come true," Rosenberg told NewsMax.com. "Two-thirds to three-quarters of the book has already come true in some way shape or form, and we are possibly within weeks of a type of apocalyptic moment of history the like of which nobody in my generation has ever seen.”

Sean Hannity calls "The Last Jihad" a “high-speed, heart-pounding edge-of-your-seat roller coaster ride into the heart of darkness,” and Rush Limbaugh says it “crackles with high energy.”

When Rosenberg tackles the terrifying subject of a potential all-out Iraqi terrorist assault on the U.S., he brings to his narrative an imposing background that includes working for Netanyahu and such prominent Americans as Steve Forbes and Rush Limbaugh.

The New York Times calls Rosenberg, now a political columnist for World magazine, a “force in the Capital,” and "The Last Jihad” shows why he fits the title.

The plot revolves around Saddam Hussein’s covert attack on the U.S., which includes sending Iraqi hit men to America, and elevates into the threat of a nuclear holocaust that would not only level Washington, but also destroy New York and Tel Aviv in the bargain.

Complicating the threat is the warning issued to the president of the United States by the Israeli prime minister that he will destroy Baghdad in exactly one hour if the U.S. fails to act.

Against this threat of a worldwide nuclear holocaust Rosenberg pits his hero, Jon Bennett, a Wall Street strategist and friend of the president’s, and his beautiful companion, Erin McCoy.

It is an extraordinary novel, and chillingly prophetic.

Get the best-selling thriller "The Last Jihad" at a discount from the NewsMax Store.

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