I’m sure all readers of this blog are following the news from Syria about the internal dissension and fighting that is steadily escalating in that nation. Let’s look at the situation and then see the important ramifications it has for the Gog-Magog and western alliances.
To begin with, accomplishing regime change in Syria will be far more difficult for the West than getting rid of Gaddafi in Libya. The western powers obtained a “no fly zone” for Libyan air space at the UN, but the USA/NATO was “given an inch” by the UN and they “took a mile.” A “no fly zone” would have merely prevented Libyan warplanes from flying attack missions vs. Libyan rebels, but it would not have allowed any NATO warplanes to fly attack missions vs. the Libyan ground forces or against any Libyan government facilities. NATO’s attack missions in Libya went far beyond the “no fly zone” authorized by UN action. The overthrow of Libya’s government took place almost in NATO’s backyard, and Russia, China and Iran could do little about it. Syria is a hugely different situation. The USA/NATO tried to get another UN resolution against Syria’s government passed, but Russia and China were not about to allow the USA/NATO to have another chance to exceed their UN mandate by a new military intervention in Syria. As readers are no doubt aware, Russia and China vetoed a UN resolution that could have allowed the USA/NATO some “cover” to justify military action against Assad’s Syrian government.
The facts on the ground in Syria are muddled. Western media are reporting that an uprising against Assad’s government is in progress and that some forces from Syria’s army have joined the rebels. Western media sources depict this uprising as a popular one among Syria’s oppressed masses. However, a report from the Asia Times indicates the situation is not at all so clear-cut and I have enclosed it for your review as the first link. Indeed, it indicates a majority of Syrians support Assad, and it discusses what really is at stake in Syria. It is a classic confrontation between Russia, China and Iran (who do not want to lose their ally, Assad, as the leader of Syria in their anti-western alliance) and the USA, NATO and Saudi Arabian alliance (which wants to shift Syria from being a pro-Iranian nation into a pro-western and pro-Saudi nation).
Iran may be taking direct action to support Assad, and that would be entirely logical and predictable. The second link claims that Iranians have already been captured by the rebel forces in Syria, but were these Iranians military personnel or simply Iranian support personnel in Syria? There is no question that Russia is strongly supporting the Assad regime. The third link and fourth link note that Vladimir Putin has warned the West to keep “hands off” from interfering in Syria, and that Russian warships recently made a call at a Syrian port. Russia’s navy has a support base in Syria and they do not want to lose that base of operations for their navy in the Mediterranean region. Assad is an ally of Russia and Russia is in a position to send a massive airlift of arms and all types of military equipment into Syria to support the Assad regime if it wants to do so. Iran could very quickly send entire divisions of Iranian ground forces to prop up Assad if it wants to do so. If western air forces conduct air operations against Syrian targets, Russia could quickly send air-defense systems into Syria with Russian technicians to operate them.
Regime change in Syria will be far more difficult than it was in Libya. The Saudis, angered by the loss of their close ally, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in the “Arab Spring” (which has helped Iranian interests throughout the Islamic world) would like nothing better than to overthrow the Assad regime and replace it with a Sunni Arab regime allied with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and the Gulf states in an anti-Iranian alliance. What is happening in Syria is a struggle to see if Syria will remain in what Ezekiel 38 identifies as the Gog-Magog alliance headed by Russia, China and Iran or whether it will be wrenched from their alliance and made friendly to Saudi/western interests. This is a struggle between the great powers, and the outcome of this struggle is not at all clear at this time.
Two nations, Israel and Turkey, have a major stake in the outcome of this struggle. Israel would be benefited if Assad fell and Syria’s new regime was hand-picked by the Saudis to be a Sunni Arab, anti-Iranian regime. However, it is also very possible that if Assad fell, the new regime could be dominated by Moslem Brotherhood types which could leave Israel even more isolated than it is now. Turkey used to govern Syria during the Ottoman Empire days, and it may entertain hopes that it can install a pro-Turkish ruler in Syria. Turkey is in the best position to intervene militarily in Syria, but it would almost certainly need at least token support from NATO nations, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League to justify an invasion of Syria by Turkish forces. Such intervention could begin by a Turkish seizure of a northern slice of Syria to create a “humanitarian safety” region for Syrian civilians. However, such a strategy is fraught with great danger. Turkey could find itself at war with not only Syria, but Iran as well. Iran and Russia will not easily let Syria out of their orbit of influence. As one of the articles notes, it is even possible that a “false flag” operation could be carried out to create a Syrian “atrocity” which would “justify” intervention by the western/Turkish/Saudi/Arab League inside Syria to overthrow Assad.
Keep watching this situation very closely. Syria is not directly mentioned in Ezekiel 38 as a member of the Gog-Magog alliance which has come into existence in our time exactly as the prophet Ezekiel prophesied about 2500 years ago, but Ezekiel 38:6’s language that “many [unnamed] people” will be part of the Gog-Magog alliance allows for Syria to remain in it. If the western powers and Saudi Arabia can implement a regime change in Syria and install a pro-Sunni/Arab, anti-Shiite/Iranian regime in Damascus, it would be a huge triumph for the west and for Saudi Arabia and a major loss for Russia and Iran. This is a vital struggle to keep watching.
