> Some Post–Cold War millenarians still identify Gog with Russia, but they now tend to stress its allies among Islamic nations, especially Iran. For the most fervent, the countdown to Armageddon began with the return of the Jews to Israel, followed quickly by further signs pointing to the nearness of the final battle—nuclear weapons, European integration, Israel's seizure of Jerusalem, and America's wars in Afghanistan and the Gulf. In the prelude to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush told Jacques Chirac, "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East". "This confrontation", he urged the French leader, "is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase His people's enemies before a new age begins". Chirac consulted a professor at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Lausanne to explain Bush's reference.
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