Cyberattacks, “sleeper assets,” and oil above $100 a barrel

Iran has apparently conducted a significant cyberattack against a US company, a first since the war began. The hack reflects what one expert called a recent “troubling trend” in destructive cyber operations.

Stryker, a company that makes joint implants, robotic surgery systems, and other medical devices and equipment, told its roughly 56,000 employees on Wednesday to disconnect from all networks and avoid turning on company-issued devices. It confirmed that it experienced a global disruption to its Microsoft systems due to a cyberattack. The hackers behind the digital assault said they were acting on behalf of Iran.

Sleeper cells, drones, and a strike on a girls’ school

In related news, the US has intercepted encrypted communications believed to have come from Iran that may serve as an “operational trigger” for “sleeper assets” outside the country. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) warned this week that the danger posed by such cells in the US has “never been higher.”

The FBI has also recently warned police departments in California that Iran could launch drones at the West Coast, though officials caution that the memo may not point to an immediate threat. And Iran attacked six vessels in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz; its attacks on shipping traffic and energy infrastructure pushed oil above $100 a barrel early Thursday.

The US military on Tuesday destroyed sixteen Iranian mine-laying vessels. However, a maritime expert warned that it is easy for Iran’s military to “quickly send out speedboats loaded with bombs and missiles to attack ships if they wanted to do that.” The strait typically handles about 20 percent of the world’s oil supply; calls are growing for commercial shipping vessels to be protected in the region.

In response, the thirty-two member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA) unanimously agreed to collectively release their largest-ever quantity of emergency oil reserves, amounting to four hundred million barrels. President Trump said the move “will substantially reduce oil prices.”

Meanwhile, the US has launched a formal investigation into a missile strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed at least 165 civilians, many of them children. According to a US official, a preliminary assessment found the US at fault. The investigation is expected to take months; if the US role in the attack is confirmed, it would rank among the military’s most deadly incidents involving civilians in decades.

“The only thing we have to fear”

Cyberattacks can theoretically reach anyone connected to the internet, which obviously includes you and me today. “Sleeper cells” could presumably exist anywhere in the US and threaten anyone in the US. Escalating oil prices could disrupt the global economy, substantially impacting our daily lives.

The first six days of the war in Iran cost US taxpayers at least $11.3 billion just in munitions. There is no way to know the ultimate cost of the war in money and in casualties, of course.

It is therefore unsurprising and predictable that we would respond to such news with the fear that it could affect us personally in ways we cannot predict or control. Consequently, effective leaders will respond effectively to such fears in ways that engender hope.

For example, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his first national radio address—or “fireside chat”—on this day in 1933. Eight days after his inauguration, he spoke directly to the American people about the Great Depression and his decision to close the nation’s banks to stop a surge in mass withdrawals. He assured them that the banks would reopen the next day and thanked them for their “fortitude and good temper” during the “banking holiday.”

The president would go on to deliver thirty more such broadcasts over the next eleven years. They were his attempt to reassure the public in very perilous times, illustrating his famous statement in his first inaugural address: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

“From everlasting to everlasting you are God”

The most omniscient and omnipotent leader of humanity is, of course, our omnibenevolent Father. One of the ways he redeems the fears we face is by using them to draw us to himself in faith.

For example, when the psalmist was facing “the hand of the wicked” and “the grasp of the unjust and cruel man,” he testified, “You, O Lᴏʀᴅ, are my hope, my trust, O Lᴏʀᴅ, from my youth” (Psalm 71:4–5). He could therefore pray, “In you, O Lᴏʀᴅ, do I take refuge” and ask, “Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come” (vv. 1, 3). And he could conclude with the assurance, “They have been put to shame and disappointed who sought to do me hurt” (v. 24).

When Jonah found himself in “the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:17), he prayed: “I called out to the Lᴏʀᴅ, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice” (Jonah 2:2). After he testified, “Salvation belongs to the Lᴏʀᴅ!” (v. 9), we read that “the Lᴏʀᴅ spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land” (v. 10). He then fulfilled the mission to Ninevah he had sought to evade, leading to the repentance of the nation (Jonah 3).

Moses could say to God, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2). He could therefore pray, “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us” (v. 17).

He knew whereof he spoke. After the Lord delivered Moses and the Israelites from Egypt, they responded: “I will sing to the Lᴏʀᴅ, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lᴏʀᴅ is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation” (Exodus 15:1–2).

One day, we too will “sing the song of Moses, the servant of God and the song of the Lamb”:

Great and amazing are your deeds,

O Lord God the Almighty!

Just and true are your ways,

O King of the nations!

Who will not fear, O Lord,

and glorify your name?

For you alone are holy.

All nations will come

and worship you,

for your righteous acts have been revealed (Revelation 15:3–4).

How to “abound in hope”

Until that day, we can name our fears and trust them by faith to our Father. We can know that he knows our problems and challenges better than we do (cf. Matthew 6:8). We can know that because he “is” love, he can only want our best (1 John 4:8). And we can trust that his will never lead where his grace cannot sustain.

To this end, we can pray with Paul, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13).

Why do you need such hope today?