By the NewsMax.com Staff

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Sunday, July 16, 2006 3:56 p.m. EDT

Gingrich Says World War III Has Begun

World War III has begun, and the nation’s leadership is failing to deal with this reality, former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich concludes.

Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press with Tim Russert Sunday, Gingrich explained that "today is not the fifth day of the war, it’s the 58th year of the effort by those who want to destroy Israel. As Ahmadinejad, the head of Iran, says, he wants to defeat the Americans and eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. So we should not see this event in isolation. There is an ... Iran/Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas alliance trying to destroy Israel.”

". . . the Israelis withdrew from Gaza to create the circumstance of peace. The Israelis withdrew from south Lebanon to create the circumstance of peace,” Gingrich continued. "They now have a thousand missiles fired from Gaza, they’ve had hundreds of missiles fired from south Lebanon. You clearly have Iranian involvement. There are at least 400 Iranian guards in south Lebanon. Apparently it was an Iranian missile fired by Iranians which hit an Israeli warship yesterday. The United States should be saying to Syria and Iran, 'South Lebanon is going to be cleared out. We are for Israel and the Lebanese government breaking the back of Hezbollah, getting rid of all 10,000 to 13,000 missiles, and we will decisively stop any effort by Syria and Iran to intervene.'”

Gingrich says the current crisis facing Israel is part of a larger world war that involved the U.S.

"I mean, this is absolutely a question of the survival of Israel, but it’s also a question of what is really a world war,” Gingrich said.

He then cited a litany of events that confirm this conclusion.

"North Korea firing missiles. We say there’ll be consequences, there are none. North Koreans fire seven missiles on our Fourth of July; bombs going off in Mumbai, India; a war in Afghanistan with sanctuaries in Pakistan … the Iran/Syria/Hamas/Hezbollah alliance.”

In addition, he said "there is the war in Iraq funded largely from Saudi Arabia and supplied largely from Syria and Iran.”

Other evidence of the war, Gingrich argues, includes:

The British home secretary saying that there are 20 terrorist groups with 1200 terrorists in Britain.

Seven people in Miami videotaped pledging allegiance to al-Qaeda

Eighteen people in Canada being picked up with twice the explosives that were used in Oklahoma City, with an explicit threat to bomb the Canadian parliament, and saying they’d like to behead the Canadian prime minister.

In New York City, reports that in three different countries people were plotting to destroy the tunnels of New York.

Gingrich explained: "We are in the early stages of what I would describe as the third world war, and frankly, our bureaucracies aren’t responding fast enough. We don’t have the right attitude about this . . . And frankly, the Israelis have every right to insist that every single missile leave south Lebanon and that the United States ought to be helping the Lebanese government have the strength to eliminate Hezbollah as a military force, not as a political force in the parliament, but as a military force in south Lebanon.”

Asked host Tim Russert "This is World War III?”

"I believe if you take all the countries I just listed, that you’ve been covering, put them on a map, look at all the different connectivity, you’d have to say to yourself this is, in fact, World War III,” Gingrich said.