THE MIDEAST MAP IS BEING RAPIDLY CHANGED

As the title of this post says, the Mideast map is literally being rearranged as we watch what is happening in that region after the amazingly swift collapse of the oppressive reign of Bashar al-Assad over Syria. When the Syrian rebels moved out of their stronghold inside Syria, I had no idea how quickly many Syrian cities would come under the rebels control. Then Damascus, the capital, fell to the rebels and Assad was reportedly on a plane to live in exile in Russia. This all happened with lightning speed, and it create a Mideast with a new set of facts and future possibilities (not all of them are good).

The biggest immediate loser in the region is Iran. Their alliance of proxies are quickly collapsing, and there is little Iran can do about it. Iran learned in two missile attack exchanges with Israel that Iran’s defenses were no match for Israeli military capabilities. Iran can do little more than watch what is happening. If they try to attack Israel again with another large wave of missiles, I believe Israel will launch a mass attack against Iran’s energy and nuclear facilities (good-bye to Kharg Island!). Hamas is all but destroyed and it has been beaten by Israel. It would be well-advised to surrender, lay down its arms and release all its hostages. Hezbollah’s leadership, weapons stocks and weapons launchers have been all but destroyed, and their power within Lebanon appears to be on the verge of being considerably lessened. Syria is being gutted of its military resources (which were considerable) by numerous Israeli air attacks (first link). It seems the entire Syrian military force has walked off the job and is in hiding. No one wants to be linked to the former regime for fear of being hit by reprisals by the rebels who have taken charge of the shambles that once was Syria. Iran had a huge quantity of weapons of all kinds stored inside Syria, and these weapons stocks were all intended for use against Israel by Hezbollah and Syria. Israel is taking advantage of the current lack of air defenses over Syrian territory by wrecking as much of the Iranian/Syrian war stocks as possible.

Iran’s “empire” is disintegrating rapidly (second link), and Israel is using this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to strip Syria of its Iranian-supplied weaponry while it is apparently all undefended. The first link mentions 350 recent air strikes vs. military sites within Syria but I’ve heard figures of over 400 such strikes on cable-TV news reports. The first link estimates 80% of Syria’s military resources have already been destroyed, and Syrian warships have even been attacked in their harbors. Israel has sent its army into Syria along Israel’s northern border as it logically wants to create a wide buffer zone between the chaos inside Syria and the northern Israeli cities where their inhabitants are just starting to return to their homes. The third link and fourth link report that Israeli tanks are now just “25 kilometers” or “20 kilometers” from Damascus. Israel has seized control of Mt. Hermon and I don’t think they will ever give it back to anyone since its high vantage point allows a wide panorama of views from the northern edge of Israel. It is too strategically important to ever give back, and the entire Golan Heights region is now securely in Israeli hands.

I can attest to how important that fact is. When I was in Israel in August, 2000, I stayed a night in Kibbutz HaGoshrim at the base of the Golan Heights. When I walked outside the next morning, I was awed by how high the Golan Heights tower above the northern plains of Israel! Seeing it with my own eyes, I realized Israel cannot ever give that real estate to Syria or anyone else as artillery could fire on a wide range of Israeli cities and towns if a hostile party controlled those heights (as Syria once did).

The only Iranian proxy still intact are the Houthis in Yemen who fire at passing merchant ships headed for Egypt’s Suez Canal. The fifth link reports that the Houthis just recently attacked a convoy of three merchant ships, but two US navy warships escorting the small convoy shot down the Houthi missiles. That the Houthis are still firing missiles at merchant ships indicates the Biden administration has been ineffectively targeting or attacking the Houthi terrorists. What has the Biden administration been targeting in the Houthi region? Are they just conducting meaningless attacks that hit only sand dunes? When Donald Trump again becomes president, I expect that he will target the Houthis with carpet bombing from B-52 bombers and other aircraft as well as by surface to surface missiles fired by US naval ships. The Houthi threat can be ended very quickly when we have a president with some backbone and willpower.

The second link raises the issue of Erdogan-led Turkish forces annexing part of northern Syria. Turkey has backed some of the rebel groups now in charge in Damascus. Turkey runs the risk of conducting an overreach. Turkey has already attacked the US-backed Kurds in Northeast Syria, and that will bring Turkey into confrontation with President Trump when Trump comes into office. Most people do not realize the nations of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq came into existence after World War 1 with their current borders because the British and French Empires arbitrarily drew lines on the map of the Mideast without regard to tribal or historic groupings. The Kurds, a large tribe in the region, did not receive a nation of their own. It would stabilize the region if an independent Kurdistan was now created. The Kurds have been pro-American allies and they would almost certainly be eager to join the Abraham Accords started by President Trump in his first term. Iraq is essentially a vassal state of Iran, so creating a Kurdish state out of Northern Iraq and Northeastern Syria would weaken Iran even further. However, as everyone knows, logic does not always prevail in the Mideast.

The rebels now in charge of Damascus and many Syrian cities are a wild card. No one knows what their policies will be. They are making the right noises about being tolerant of religious diversity, women’s garb, etc. (sixth link and seventh link), but none of that is for sure yet. That is why Israel is denuding Syria of Iranian military hardware. Israel has to destroy all this Iranian weaponry inside Syria before it is seized by Iran or a force loyal to Iran. It is also unclear if Russia will keep its toehold in Syria or not. Russia has had bases for its navy in the Mediterranean Sea due to bases in Syrian port cities. They may now become untenable, but Russia would be loathe to lose access to warm-water ports in the Mediterranean Sea region.

The current rearrangement of the Mideast’s power structures fits perfectly with biblical prophecy. Iran and all its proxies wanted to destroy the Israeli nation and people. The slogan “From the River to the Sea” was proclaimed by Hamas and those sympathetic to its anti-Jewish agendas. That slogan is, of course, code for a desire to kill off the Jews/Israelis and replace the Israeli nation with a Palestinian state. The possibility of a “two state solution” in the Promised Land now looks like a remote pipe dream. The Israelis now dominate the Mideast. This was prophesied to occur in the Bible. Genesis 49:8-10 contain a prophecy that during the latter days of our age (Genesis 49:1) the Jews (“Judah”) would have the national spirit of a lion and that it would have its hand “in the neck of its enemies.” That describes the current state of affairs in the Mideast very well. The Israelis/Jews in the modern world constitute the Israelite tribe of Judah. Zephaniah 2:1-10 also pronounces God’s wrath against the nations surrounding Judah’s nation in the latter days. These nations are “vaunting themselves against their [Judah’s] border.” God has given territory to the Israelis/Jews in the latter days of our age, and God will not allow anyone to take Judah’s land from them (no matter how often Judah’s enemies chant their “from the river to the sea” slogan).

The so-called “lost ten tribes” will be found not in the Promised Land but rather in other nations in the world. Genesis 49 prophesies that all ten tribes will be present among the nations in the latter days, and Revelation 7:1-8 agrees. Those who say the ten tribes of Israel disappeared or went extinct are grievously in error. Even when God anciently sent the ten tribes into exile, Hosea 1:10 prophesied that God would vastly increase their populations after they went into exile.

My four printed books and the E-book on the history of the ten tribes throughout history and into the present can be obtained at my website’s homepage. They offer a very comprehensive examination of the empires and kingdoms throughout history which were founded by the descendants of the ten tribes. Extensive evidence that we are living in the latter days can be seen in my article, Are We Living in the Biblical “Latter Days?” A number of articles at the “Articles” tab at my website’s homepage reveal the history and identity of many of the individual ten tribes of Israel. Where the USA fits into these prophecies is dealt with extensively in my books, but you can get a synopsis of the evidence in my article, The United States of America in Biblical Prophecy.

We need to keep our eyes on the Mideast! It is an important and unfolding drama.

THE MIDEAST MAP IS BEING RAPIDLY CHANGED

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