The recent meeting of Xi Jinping and Putin in Moscow left no question about Beijing’s commitment to developing its rapport with Moscow, despite Putin’s growing isolation on the global stage as its devastating war continues into its second year.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 21, 2023.
In their joint statement, the two authoritarian leaders called for promoting a “multipolar world” – a buzzword for a system not led by so-called Western values and rules, and pledged to work together to “safeguard the international system,” and the United Nations – where the two have a track record of blocking motions.
They also hit out at Washington at multiple points – including saying they “urge the United States to stop undermining international and regional security and global strategic stability in order to maintain its own unilateral military superiority.”
The meeting culminated in more than a dozen agreements bolstering cooperation in areas from trade and technology to state propaganda, according to a Kremlin list. The leaders’ central statement focused on how the two countries would “deepen” their relationship.
Arguably the most important exchange came during the sendoff before Xi’s entourage headed to the airport, and was captured by (or rather intended for) the cameras…
Xi Jinping: “Change is coming that hasn’t happened in 100 years and we are driving this change together.” Putin: “I agree.”
God gives us a lot of information about the time in the future when He will pour out His wrath upon an unrepentant on earth with the Trumpet (7) and Bowl judgements (7). The following Scripture tells us that near the end of the Bowl judgments, the Kings of the East are gathered by demonic spirits to come to Israel for the final great battle of Armageddon. So we know China will play a leading end-times role led by Satan and his demonic spirits to fight against Jesus and the Saints.
“The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east. And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty… And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.”Revelation 16:12-14,16
Battle of Armageddon
“And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.“ Revelation 19:19-21
The Israel Air Force and the United States Air Force held the largest joint aerial exercise in years, simulating strikes against Iran’s nuclear program and mid-flight refueling.
The two-day drill took place over the Mediterranean Sea and Israel. Fighter jets from both countries simulated long-range flights and striking distant targets, increasing readiness for combat scenarios with Iran.
The Israel Defense Forces and the American military’s Central Command have conducted several joint drills over recent years.
Two Israeli and one American F-16 fighter jets fly alongside one another during a joint exercise in southern Israel in January 2022.
(Israel Defense Forces) In July of 2022, President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Yair Lapid signed a Joint Declaration on the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership – also known as the Jerusalem Declaration.
The declaration stresses the U.S. commitment “never to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, and that it is prepared to use all elements of its national power to ensure that outcome.”
The joint drill was the subject of meetings in Washington last week between IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi and U.S. officials, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, and CENTCOM Commander Gen. Michael Kurilla.
While there, Kochavi was awarded the Legion of Merit by the U.S. Armed Forces in recognition of his achievements in “establishing Israel’s position as a leader of groundbreaking operational capabilities in the Middle East,” and strengthening the Israeli-American strategic alliance, a statement from the military said.
Kochavi was also recognized for stewarding the U.S.-Israeli military-to-military relationship through a transition period, as U.S. European Command handed over its geographic combatant command responsibility for Israel to U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations and regional cooperation in the Middle East.
Some NIS 3.5 billion ($1 billion) has been earmarked from the IDF’s NIS 58 billion ($17 billion) defense budget for the next year military activity relating to combating Iran.
Outgoing Defense Minister Benny Gantz earlier this month warned Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu to think “very carefully” before striking Iran.
“Israel has the ability to act in Iran. We have the readiness, development capabilities, and long-term plans we are managing. We need to prepare for this possibility, and we will also need to consider this issue very carefully before carrying it out,” he said.
God has warned us of exactly what will unfold in the end times that precede Jesus’ return to restore righteousness to His world so we should not be taken by surprise God is in control.
“And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.” Mark 13:7-8
USA, EU, and NATO ‘not bluffing either,’ EU foreign affairs chief say, pushing back on Putin’s nuclear threats.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
The European Union’s foreign affairs chief warned Russia that any use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine would result in the complete destruction of the Russian army.
EU High Representative Josep Borrell spoke at a diplomatic academy in Brussels Thursday morning, pushing back on recent comments made by Russian President Vladimir Putin hinting at the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons in the ongoing war with Ukraine.
On Thursday, Borrell responded to Putin’s recent comments, vowing the West would destroy Russia’s military if nuclear weapons are used against Ukraine.
“There is the nuclear threat and Putin is saying he is not bluffing. Well, he cannot afford bluffing. And it has to be clear that the people supporting Ukraine and the European Union and the Member States, and the United Stated and NATO are not bluffing neither.”
“And any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated, and Putin should not be bluffing.”
“This is a serious moment in history, and we have to show our unity, our strength, and our determination. Complete determination.”
Further evidence, if you need it,that we are living in the prophesied “last days” when Jesus gave us the prophecy of “wars and rumours of wars” as just one of the many signs of what we will see just before He returns first to rapture the Saints and second to pour out His wrath upon the unrepentant.
“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” Matthew 24:6-8
“And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.” Mark 13:7-8
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ibrahim Raisi, in late July seeking a ‘green light’ to re-invade northern Syria.
The US, Iran, and Russia all agree that any Turkish aggression in northern Syria would enable a revival of the Islamic State. Frustrated but not deterred, Erdogan vowed to carry out the invasion anyway, saying he doesn’t need anyone’s permission to advance Turkey’s interests. Analysts suspect Turkey is preparing to invade the Kurds, Assyrian and Armenian Christians, and the Syrian Arab Army is preparing for that eventuality.
In the northwest, Aleppo would be gravely imperiled. In the northeast, Christians across the entire Jazira region (the largest and most populous part of Hasakah Governorate) would be imperiled. After 10 years of war against the US-backed Sunni Axis, Islamic State, the Turkish state, and its jihadist proxies, a remnant of Christians remains in the north. Determined to maintain the Christian presence there, they desperately do not want to be erased from the map. However, as Nabil Warda of the Khabour Guards warns: “The Turkish occupation threatens the existence of the Assyrian people.” The Christians will resist to their last breath. Please pray it does not come to that.
Vladimir Putin has warned Russia would be prepared to use its nuclear arsenal to defend its territory as he dramatically escalated his war with Ukraine, mobilising 300,000 reservists to join the fight in response to the country’s humiliating battlefield defeats.
The Russian President declared in a national address on Wednesday that his country would use “all available means at our disposal” to protect itself against a Western plot to “destroy” it, as the Kremlin moved to annex occupied territories in Ukraine’s Donbas region. Beijing – which this year established a “no limits” partnership with Moscow – responded by calling for a ceasefire and peace talks.
“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” Matthew 24:6-8
It cannot be a good sign that Russia, China, and North Korea at the same time are threatening to launch the world’s most destructive weaponry.
On May 1, on Russian TV, the media executive often called “Putin’s mouthpiece” urged the Russian president to launch a Poseidon underwater drone with a “warhead of up to 100 megatons.”
The detonation, said Dmitry Kiselyov, would create a 1,640-foot tidal wave that would “plunge Britain to the depths of the ocean.” The wave would reach halfway up England’s tallest peak, Scafell Pike.
“This tidal wave is also a carrier of extremely high doses of radiation,” Kiselyov pointed out. “Surging over Britain, it will turn whatever is left of them into a radioactive desert, unusable for anything. How do you like this prospect?”
“A single launch, Boris, and there is no England anymore,” said Kiselyov, addressing the British prime minister.
Putin warns West fearsome Satan-2 nuclear missile is close to deployment
The threat followed one on April 28 made by Aleksey Zhuravlyov, chairman of Russia’s pro-Kremlin Rodina Party. On the “60 Minutes” program carried on Channel One, Russian TV, he urged Putin to nuke Britain with a Sarmat, the world’s largest and heaviest missile. The NATO designation of the Sarmat is “Satan II.”
The program noted that a missile launched from Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave would take 106 seconds to hit Berlin, 200 seconds to reach Paris, and 202 seconds to obliterate London.
Putin himself has gotten in on the fun. Just before sending his forces across Ukraine’s border, he warned of “consequences you have never encountered in your history.” On February 27, he put his nuclear forces on high alert.
On March 1, the Russian leader actually sortied his ballistic missile submarines and land-based mobile missile launchers in what was called a drill.
On May 4, the Russian Defense Ministry announced “electronic launches” in Kaliningrad of its nuclear-capable Iskander mobile ballistic missile.
Russia has a nuclear doctrine known as “escalate to deescalate” or, more accurately, “escalate to win,” which contemplates threatening or using nuclear weapons early in a conventional conflict.
China, which on February 4 issued a joint statement with Russia about their no-limits partnership, has this century been periodically making unprovoked threats to destroy the cities of states that have somehow offended it. In July of last year, for instance, the Chinese regime threatened to nuke Japan over its support for Taiwan.
In September, China issued a similar threat against Australia because it had joined with the U.S. and UK in the AUKUS pact, an arrangement to maintain stability in the region.
This March, China’s Ministry of Defense promised the “worst consequences” for countries helping Taiwan defend itself. The threat appeared especially directed against Australia.
This month, North Korea said that, in addition to using nuclear weapons to retaliate against an attack, it might launch nukes to attack others.
It cannot be a good sign that Russia, China, and North Korea at the same time are threatening to launch the world’s most destructive weaponry.
Putin and Chinese ruler Xi Jinping could make such threats because they do not respect nations perceived as enemies. “The bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan and the unwillingness to effectively support Ukraine since America’s 1994 guarantee and especially over the past year have led nuclear-armed enemies to ratchet up threats to the U.S. and its allies,” Huessy, also president of GeoStrategic Analysis, said to Gatestone at the beginning of this month. “They sense a growing American weakness.”
These threats may also reveal that the leaders of these regimes share a last-days-in-the-bunker mentality. Both Russia and China, albeit in different ways, are ruled by regimes in distress, which means their leaders undoubtedly have low thresholds of risk.
Whatever the reason for the threats, Putin and Xi have told everyone what they intend to do. Unfortunately, Western leaders are determined not to believe them.
In response to Russian threats, President Joe Biden on February 28 said the American people should not worry about nuclear war. On the contrary, there is every reason to worry.
In line with Western thinking, presidents and prime ministers have almost always ignored nuclear threats, hoping not to dignify them. Unfortunately, this posture has only emboldened the threat-makers to make more threats. The later the international community confronts belligerent Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans, the more dangerous the confrontations will be.
The world, therefore, looks like it is fast approaching the worst moment in history.
Until individuals have peace with God through Christ’s shed blood there can be no inner peace.
The inner struggles of our nature erupt into conflict, which may even rise to the level of war. It began when Cain raised his hand against his brother Abel, committing the first murder. It is what causes wars among nations.
“Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures” James 4:1-3
The memorial of the Jewish Passover prophetically pointed ahead to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our Passover Lamb, the Saviour of all those prepared to put their trust in Him as Saviour and Lord.
“Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” 1 Corinthians 5:7-8
Christ is our Passover. He died for the sins of humanity and is alive today. He is your King and through Him, we can have peace. Jesus made it possible for our Heavenly Father to send the Holy Spirit to indwell every believer to enable us to live the Christian life, He is your counsellor, your comforter and your teacher. He will guide you into all truth. He will produce the fruit of the Spirit in your life: love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, goodness, gentleness, kindness and self-control. He provides the spiritual gifts for ministry; wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues.
“The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts.” Proverbs 20:27
A lamp requires oil (Holy Spirit) to function. Our spirit was always meant to be a vessel for the Holy Spirit. When Adam sinned the Holy Spirit immediately departed his spirit. He died spiritually first and then physically he died aged 930 years. When we repent and accept Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf we are born again by the Holy Spirit indwelling our spirit. To have the Holy Spirit indwell your spirit is worth everything.
“Thekingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” Matthew 13:45
The following article Russia’s Putin gambles that the West is weak by Australia’s Prime Minister (2013-2015) appeared in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL February 28, 2022
Tony Abbott as prime minister speaks during a national memorial service to honour victims of the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014. Picture: AAP
Ukraine’s fate was probably sealed when President Biden said last month that America might not respond to a “minor incursion” and definitively ruled out “boots on the ground”.
No consideration whatever appears to have been given to declaring a “no fly” zone for Russian military aircraft over Ukraine, even though that had been done to protect Iraqi Kurds against Saddam Hussein and would have given the Ukrainian army a much fairer fight against the Russians’ greater numbers.
America’s unwillingness to take risks to protect Ukraine, a democracy of more than 40 million people, is now fuelling doubts about the risks the US might run to help defend other countries that were once controlled by Russia — especially the Baltic states, which are part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
It’s obvious that small countries are largely helpless in the absence of collective defence and that countries that won’t or can’t fight an aggressor are doomed to negotiate the best possible surrender.
Yet the West’s bigger surrender has been economic and cultural. For at least 15 years, much of Western policy has been directed to reducing carbon-dioxide emissions. In Australia, former prime minister Kevin Rudd declared that climate change is the “great moral challenge” of our time.
The British parliament, along with many others, has officially declared a “climate emergency”. Last week, as the air raid sirens wailed over Kyiv, John Kerry worried that the Ukraine crisis would produce “massive emissions” and distract the world from climate change.
Reducing emissions is an important policy objective but should never be governments’ main task — especially when it entails risking significant economic damage and putting national security at risk. Europe has been busily closing down coal-fired power stations (and in Germany even emissions-free nuclear ones) only to become dependent on Russian gas that Mr Putin can turn off and on like a tap.
Here in Australia, we’re set on closing coal-fired power stations without any base-load substitute even while our thermal coal exports surge to record levels (including to China, an even more dangerous strategic competitor than Russia).
It’s the private sector that’s doing this, an unforgivable folly reminiscent of Lenin’s reported quip that the “capitalists will sell us the rope by which we hang them”.
Then there’s globalisation, which has undoubtedly made the world richer but at the cost (as we’ve only lately come to realise) of strengthening the West’s competitors and exporting its manufacturing base. Free trade should continue to be promoted but principally between countries with comparable standards of living and only between democracies that respect the rule of law.
The worst contemporary folly is the constant undermining of Western civilisation, history and national virtues.
Partly it is deliberate subversion by cultural Marxists, but mostly it’s the polite acquiescence of diffident and historically ignorant people conditioned not to give offence.
These days the rights of men who want to be women routinely trump those of women who don’t want to face unfair competition in sport. Religious free speech is still OK, as long it’s not the Bible you’re quoting.
Martin Luther King’s famous plea that his children be judged by the content of their character, not the colour of their skin, would be denounced on most Western campuses as an example of “colourblind racism”.
“Monty Python’s Life of Brian” couldn’t be made today due to politically correct wowserism. And I wonder how many students are still taught to take pride in Australia Day, which celebrates the founding of a country that’s as free, fair and prosperous as any on earth.
A Western world that has spent two years sacrificing freedom to preserve life is hardly going to sacrifice life to preserve freedom. Or at least that’s how it must look to the hard men in Moscow and Beijing.
As Churchill said of the Munich sellout in 1938, this is “the first foretaste of a bitter cup that will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time”.
Tony Abbott was prime minister of Australia, 2013-15.
Fortunately for Christians what is unfolding has been prophesied by God in His History book, the Bible. He told us how His world came into being and why.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1
“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1:26
It is the habitation for the people He made in His image to be sovereign over His creation but under His authority. He told our ancestor Adam what the consequences would be of disobedience but he and Eve chose to disobey God. SIN and death were the outcomes that we are dealing with today.
“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”Genesis 2:16
Fortunately, God provided a way out by Jesus’ substitutionary death for us and yet most reject God’s offer of eternal life. They foolishly want to control their own destiny for the short time they have on God’s earth and we have history to show us what sinful man has accomplished. For those of us that have realised our sinfulness, repented and submitted our lives to Jesus Lordship, we have received the Holy Spirit that God the Father has sent to indwell the Spirit of each believer. How blessed we are, without the Holy Spirit, it is impossible to live a Christian life. The unbeliever has no understanding of what they are missing out on.
Following on my post on February 13th, US President Joe Biden believes Russian leader Vladimir Putin has decided to invade Ukraine and that the attack could begin “in the coming days.”
“As of this moment, I’m convinced he’s made the decision. We have reason to believe that,” Mr Biden said, adding that Washington has “significant intelligence capability” to back the claim.
“We believe they will target Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million innocent people,” he said of Russian forces.
This Maxar satellite released on February 18 shows a view of Su-25 ground attack aircraft at Luninets Air Base in Belarus, about 50kms north of the Ukrainian border.
But with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken scheduled to speak with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday, Mr Biden said there was still time for negotiations to defuse the crisis.
“Diplomacy is always a possibility,” he told a press conference overnight.
Mr Biden said Moscow was conducting a disinformation campaign, including accusing Kyiv of planning its own attack in order to create a pretext for a Russian invasion.
“There is simply no evidence to these assertions and it defies basic logic to believe the Ukrainians would choose this moment, with well over 150,000 (Russian) troops arrayed on its borders, to escalate a years-long conflict,” Mr Biden said.
“All these are consistent with the playbook the Russians have used before to set up a false justification to act against Ukraine,” Mr Biden said at the White House.
The Australian Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg aims Ukraine war salvo at Russians at G20 meeting
The US President’s latest warning comes after Australia and Russia clashed behind closed doors at a G20 finance ministers meeting in Jakarta, with Josh Frydenberg warning Russia that an invasion of Ukraine would deliver not only a human disaster but a devastating second shock to the global economy just as the world was recovering from Covid.
In an interview with The Weekend Australian, the Treasurer said Russia was playing a “dangerous game” with the global economy that threatened to derail the pandemic recovery.
Mr Frydenberg’s comments follow Defence Minister Peter Dutton’s assessment that Russia and Ukraine were on the cusp of all-out war.
Scott Morrison said on Friday an invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces was imminent. “I hope that does not occur, but I think what we are seeing leads us to fear the worst,” the Prime Minister said.
In a closed-door intervention on Thursday night leading into the first G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers for this year, Mr Frydenberg issued a warning to his Russian counterpart that an invasion of Ukraine, which the West now fears is imminent, would have far-reaching human and economic costs.
“On the global outlook, we face a range of important challenges,” Mr Frydenberg told the meeting in which Russian deputy finance minister Timur Maksimov was present.
“The current tensions surrounding Ukraine are deeply concerning, We call upon Russia to de-escalate tensions, the alternative would be disastrous in both human and economic terms. It is in our collective interest that these tensions are resolved peacefully.”
Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is understood to have issued a similar message, claiming that the knock-on economic consequences of an invasion of Ukraine would deliver a global shock to the economy worse than the pandemic.
Ms Freeland said she was worried the work the G20 was doing to recover could be jeopardised should Russia invade.
The remarks from Mr. Frydenberg earned a swift response from Russia, which accused Australia and Canada of using the economic forum as a security meeting.
“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” Matthew 24:6-8 and Mark 13:7
Top Israeli defense officials say the country is preparing for the possibility of an armed conflict with regional arch-rival Iran and its proxies.
“We will be prepared to execute operations that haven’t been seen in the past, with means that weren’t in our hands in the past, that will harm the heart of terror and its abilities,” said Defense Minister Benny Gantz.By Associated Press
Israeli army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi said Tuesday that the Israeli military was “speeding up the operational plans and readiness for dealing with Iran and the nuclear military threat.”
Israel readying for War with Iran, Officials say
Israel considers Iran an existential threat and has warned that it would act with military force if needed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Last month Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said that “if a terror regime is going to acquire a nuclear weapon, we must act.”
Addressing lawmakers at a meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Kohavi said the military “continued to act against our enemies in covert operations and missions around the Middle East” during the past year.
His remarks came following a string of reported Israeli airstrikes in Syria. Israel has staged hundreds of strikes on Iran-linked military targets in neighboring Syria in the past decade but rarely acknowledges its operations. It has been said that Iran’s presence near its northern frontier is a red line and that it targets arms shipments bound for Iranian-backed Lebanese terror group Hezbollah and Iran-linked facilities in Syria.
Speaking during a visit to a defense industry factory in the northern city of Shlomi, near the Lebanese border, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said that Israel was “working all the time to prevent war — carrying out operations, conveying messages, preventing (a military) build-up.”
In the event of war, he said, “we will be prepared to execute operations that haven’t been seen in the past, with means that weren’t in our hands in the past, that will harm the heart of terror and its abilities.”
From Susa in Iran the ram would be charging northward to Lebanon and Iraq
What we see Iran doing militarily is an “end times” prophecy in the book of Daniel. Iran is the ram charging westward and northward and southward. The two horns represent the supreme leader Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei and General Hossein Salami head of the country’s Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) together they control all political and military power in Iran.
“I was in Susa the citadel, which is in the province of Elam (Iran). And I saw in the vision, and I was at the Ulai canal. I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram (Iran) standing on the bank of the canal. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue them from his power. He did as he pleased and became great.” Daniel 8:2-4
We need to watch for the next part of Daniel 8’s prophecy to be fulfilled. Sunni Turkey (Goat) will not tolerate Shia Iran (Ram) claiming leadership of the Muslim middle east. Turkey (previously controlled the powerful Ottoman Empire) considers itself the leader of the Muslim world. Daniel’s prophecy predicts Turkey defeating Iran in what is described as a savage encounter but then we are told Turkey’s bid to re-establish a neo-Ottoman Empire is short-lived. We are not told who comes against Turkey, possibly the UN or a coalition of western nations that do not want to see a revived Ottoman Empire. Russia for one would not want to see a revived Ottoman Empire challenge its dominance in the region. We are told that it is broken up into four nations/kingdoms and it is out of these that the Little Horn (Antichrist) emerges.
Turkey’s attempt to re-establish a neo-Ottoman Empire
“The goat (Turkey) had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. He came toward the two-horned ram (Iran) I had seen standing beside the canal and rushed at him with savage fury. I saw him approaching the ram, and infuriated with him, he struck the ram, shattering his two horns, and the ram was not strong enough to stand against him... Then the male goat became very great, but when he became powerful, the large horn was shattered. Four conspicuous horns came up in its place, pointing toward the four winds of heaven.” Daniel 8:6-8
It is only then that the Antichrist (little horn) arrives on the scene and is allowed to dominate the world for an allotted time, three and half years.
“From one of them, a little horn emerged and grew extensively toward the south and the east and toward the beautiful land. It grew as high as the heavenly host, made some of the stars and some of the host fall to the earth, and trampled them. It made itself great, even up to the Prince of the host; it removed His daily sacrifice and overthrew the place of His sanctuary. Because of rebellion, a host, together with the daily sacrifice, will be given over. The horn will throw truth to the ground and will be successful in whatever it does.” Daniel 8:9-12
Ezekiel 38 also links the Antichrist (Gog) to modern Turkey (and/or its immediately surrounding vicinity). Ezekiel singles out all Islamic nations in the Middle East and North Africa as comprising the vanguard of Gog’s invasion force during the Great Tribulation.
In a stunning rout, the Taliban seized nearly all of Afghanistan in just over a week, despite the billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and NATO over nearly two decades to build up Afghan security forces. Just days earlier, an American military assessment estimated it would be a month before the capital would come under insurgent pressure.
Taliban fighters take control of Afghan presidential palace in Kabul after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, Aug. 15, 2021.
The fall of Kabul marks the final chapter of America’s longest war, which began after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks masterminded by al-Qaida’s Osama bin Laden, then harboured by the Taliban government. A U.S.-led invasion dislodged the Taliban and beat them back, though America lost focus on the conflict in the chaos of the Iraq War.
As the insurgents closed in Sunday, President Ashraf Ghani flew out of the country. Ghani later posted on Facebook that he had chosen to leave the country to avert bloodshed in the capital, without saying where he had gone.
The Taliban is a predominantly Pashtun, Islamic fundamentalist group that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001, when a U.S.-led invasion toppled the regime for providing refuge to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The Taliban regrouped across the border in Pakistan and has led an insurgency against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul for nearly twenty years.
There is little doubt that many Afghans who initially joined the movement were educated in madrassas (religious schools) in Pakistan. Pakistan was also one of only three countries, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which recognised the Taliban when they were in power in Afghanistan.
On Monday, August 23rd, Prime Minister Imran Khan praised Afghans for “breaking the shackles of slavery”. On social media, retired generals and other Taliban boosters hailed the triumph of Islam.
Exultant Pakistanis shared a video clip from 2014 featuring Hamid Gul, a former head of the army’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
“When history is written, it will be stated that the ISI defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan with the help of America,” Gul says to a fawning TV studio audience. “Then there will be another sentence. The ISI, with the help of America, defeated America.”
It must be remembered that between 2002 and 2018, the US government gave Pakistan more than $33 billion in assistance, including about $14.6 billion in so-called Coalition Support Funds paid by the Pentagon to the Pakistani military. During the same period, Pakistan ensured the failure of America’s Afghanistan project by surreptitiously sheltering, arming and training the Taliban. One would think the Americans would have got the message when in 2011 US Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in a safe house next to Pakistan’s premier military academy. But successive administrations — Republican and Democratic — refused to take measures that could have forced Pakistan to rethink its support for the Taliban.
At least for now, the Taliban’s victory fulfils the Pakistani army’s decades-old quest to gain “strategic depth” by controlling Afghanistan. But this will not sate the generals; it will whet their appetite.
The symbolic significance of an army of zealots humbling the world’s sole superpower is hard to exaggerate. In the Pakistani army it will strengthen the hand of those who view Afghanistan not merely in geopolitical terms, but as the fulfilment of a religious project rooted in an extreme interpretation of Islam that shuns all Western influence.
The same holds true in Pakistani society at large. If music-hating, anti-Western, anti-Shiite misogynists can seize power in Kabul, why can’t they do the same in Islamabad? At least one homegrown Pakistani jihadist group, the Tehreek-e-Taliban, is comprised of fighters already at odds with the Pakistani government.
In a phone interview from Islamabad, Afrasiab Khattak, a former Pakistani senator and Pashtun-rights activist, points out that Pakistan houses some 36,000 madrassas, or religious seminaries, some of which are militant. “The same places producing the Taliban are producing similar people in Pakistan,” he says. “They will contest for power in Pakistan too.”
In early 2009, when Afghan President Hamid Karzai pressed Vice President-elect Joe Biden to crack down on Taliban safe havens across the border, Mr Biden reportedly rebuffed him by pointing out that “Pakistan is 50 times more important than Afghanistan for the United States.” As president, Mr Biden may have ensured that Pakistan is 50 times more dangerous to the US and the world as well.
Watch as Bible prophecy plays out in the Middle East. The next big power play will come from Turkey (Sunni) in an effort to rebuild an Ottoman Empire. It will not tolerate Iran (Shiite) exerting its influence with proxies. Iran has built a network of proxies across the Middle East. At of beginning of 2020, Tehran had allies among more than a dozen major militias, some with their own political parties, that challenged local and neighbouring governments. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the elite Qods Force provided arms, training and financial support to militias and political movements in at least six countries: Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, Syria and Yemen.
“I saw the ram (Iran) charging westward and northward and southward. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great.”Daniel 8:4
Turkey (Goat) in this next prophecy overcomes Iran (Ram) in its effort to re-establish its Ottoman Empire. It must be remembered that at least 80% of Pakistan’s Muslims are Sunni so it will support Turkey.
“As I was considering, behold, a male goat (Turkey) came from the west across the face of the whole earth, without touching the ground. And the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. He came to the ram (Iran) with the two horns, which I had seen standing on the bank of the canal, and he ran at him in his powerful wrath. I saw him come close to the ram, and he was enraged against him and struck the ram and broke his two horns. And the ram had no power to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled on him. And there was no one who could rescue the ram from his power.” Daniel 8:5-7
Bible prophecy then reveals that the re-established Ottoman Empire is short lived. It is broken up by the super powers into four and it is out of the four that the Little Horn (Antichrist) emerges.
“Then the goat became exceedingly great, but when he was strong, the great horn was broken, and instead of it there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven. Out of one of them came a little horn (Antichrist), which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious land.” Daniel 8:8-9
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