A clash in the Persian Gulf will shake the world, and "then the Messiah will come and proclaim that salvation is at hand."  Those words sound like something you might hear spoken by a rather far‑out preacher at a prophecy conference, or a pitch for someone’s latest book. But that statement, which contends that a clash in the Persian Gulf will culminate in the coming of the Messiah, came from the lips of a respected Jewish Rabbi in the early 1990s. Libavich Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, an influential figure among Israel’s ultra-orthodox Jews, made that statement, expressing his belief that conflict cannot continue without the direct intervention of the Almighty Himself.  How much more realistic does that scenario look today?