(Washington, D.C., May 4, 2010) -- Thanks for your prayers. I'm back home from The Joshua Fund-sponsored pastors conference in Iraq last week and hard at work finishing the edits for my forthcoming novel, "The Twelfth Imam," coming out this fall. In a few days, I'll send you a report on the Iraq trip. It was amazing.

But first: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is doing everything he can this week to turn international attention away from Iran's nuclear weapons program and Iran's repeated threats to annihilate the U.S. and Israel by trying to get the world to focus on Israel's alleged nuclear weapons stockpile instead. His objective during his visit to New York City: to persuade the U.N. to force Israel to disclose and dismantle all of her defensive weapons even as Iran completes its own offensive weapons.

John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., told the Israeli media that he believes the Obama administration is warming to the Iranian argument. "Egypt and the Obama administration are negotiating right now on an Egyptian proposal for a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East, which certainly sounds good," Bolton told Israeli Army Radio, according to the Jerusalem Post. "Except when you think about it, there is only one country that resolution is targeted at and that is Israel....The president is not happy with Israel's nuclear capabilities. I think he would be delighted if Israel gave up its nuclear weapons. The only unknown answer at this point is exactly how much pressure he would exert on Israel to do just that. Part of that pressure is being exerted right now by...." [To read the rest of the article, please go to the weblog.]

REMINDER: Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon has just agreed to be our special keynote speaker at the 2010 Epicenter Conference in Philadelphia this summer. He will give us an exclusive, inside look at the Iranian nuclear threat, the rising threats from Syria and Hezbollah, the state of U.S.-Israel relations, and the importance of building a strategic relationship between Israel and evangelical Christians. Please register today to join us in person.

For pastors not in the Philadelphia area, please sign up your congregation to show the live webcast of the conference.

Full details on all of this -- plus our new video blog reports -- can be found at www.epicenterconference.com.