THE ASSYRIAN KING’S SOON ARRIVAL
(SEE WHOLE NUMBERED ARCHIVE PROPHECY UPDATES 62 TO 69)
November 6, 2006
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
I have contended for more than thirty years that the teachings of the Islamic faith are the Spirit of Antichrist, and that the Antichrist himself would come out of it. The Fox News broadcast “Obsession” is a very clear manifestation of the Spirit of Antichrist in radical Islam, via its graphic portrayal of Islam’s two major goals – the slaying of Christians and the Jews, through which the promises of the true God have come.
Some two years and nine months ago, In Archive Prophecy Update 161C, I warned that Syria had made “a very bad choice.” I knew that once Bashar Assad made the choice, both he and Syria would undergo a gradual transformation from Secular to Islamic fundamentalism. The transformation began as soon as Assad chose to tie himself to Iran, and will have already been completed when the Assyrian Antichrist, the Mahdi, makes his appearance in the Middle East. Please read Archive Prophecy Update Number 161C which immediately follows. Then read the article by Amir Taheri titled “Eye of the Storm, the Islamization of Syria,” which appeared in the Jerusalem Post this month.
SPECIAL PROPHECY UPDATE NUMBER 161C
March 5, 2004
Syria Makes a Very Bad Choice
I have always believed and taught that the most likely part of the old Roman Empire, which would foster the rise of the Antichrist, would be Syria. Syria has been hanging suspended between two choices: (1) Turn toward the United States in order to avoid sanctions, and to gain support from the western world in a war on terror, or, (2) Turn toward Iran to make an alliance and continue to give support to all the terrorist groups. On February 28 Syria apparently made its choice. The Iranian Defense Minister, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, came to Damascus and signed a new military pact with the Syrian Defense Minister, General Mustufa Tias. I believe this is a clear sign that President Assad has made his choice to put his trust in an Iran-Syria Axis to protect his administration from a coup by terrorist groups in his own country. President Assad has been active recently in communications with Washington to see what they would give him in the way of security if he should choose to give up sponsoring the many terrorist group offices in Syria, and Hizbollah in Lebanon. Really, he did not have much of a choice. Had he turned pro-west and resisted the terrorist groups, his regime would have been overthrown in a matter of weeks. Syria’s new military pact with Iran likely contains an Iranian promise to invest in additional long range Scud-C missiles, now in mass production at Syria’s underground missile facility near Hamah, which is somewhat ironic in that the northern extent of Israel’s territory, after it defeats Syria at the end of the tribulation period, will extend to Hamah. The biblical name for Hamah is Hamath.
Ezekiel 47:17 – And the border from the sea shall be Hazar-enan, the border of Damascus, and the north northward, and the border
of Hamath. And this is the north side.
Genesis 15:18 – In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:
Ezekiel 47:19 – And the south side southward, from Tamar even to the waters of strife in Kadesh, the river to the great sea. And this is the south side southward.
If you want to envision the size of the Abrahamic Land Grant promised to the descendants of Abraham through Jacob (Israel), then go southwest from the southernmost tip of the Gaza Strip along the coastline of the Mediterranean 35 miles and place a point on the shoreline. Then dr aw
a line directly east from that point until you hit the Euphrates River of Iraq. That is the southern border of the land God promised to the seed of Abraham through his grandson, the man whom God renamed Israel, the man Jacob, the son of Isaac, the promised seed God gave through Sarah. The northern border of the land grant may be visualized by finding Hamah or Hama in north central Syria, and then drawing an east-west line through it, which ends on the Mediterranean to the west, and on the Euphrates River to the east. This is the northern border of Abraham’s God given Land Grant. As you can see, this is a very large tract of land, 95 percent of which is occupied by descendants of Abraham through Ishmael’s twelve sons, the six sons of Abraham by Keturah, and Moab and Ammon, the two sons of Abraham’s nephew Lot by his own daughters. They are identified generally as Arabs, and some 95 percent of them are
of the Islamic faith. Since they believe that the promises of God come through Abraham’s son Ishmael through Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s handmaiden, you can see the basic reason for the hatred between Arabs and Jews that has only intensified with the passage of the centuries (See Prophecy Updates 67 and 68 in the Archives).
I am confident that the new military pact will undoubtedly transfer the information necessary for the manufacture of the advanced Shihab-3 missile in Syria, as well as the financing for greater production of long-range artillery and ammunition.
The United States and Europe wanted Syria to follow Libya’s lead, but Bashar Assad was really in no political position to do so without being overthrown by the terrorist elements in his own country. There were four things the United States wanted Syria to give up.
(1) Scrap your long-range missile program.
(2) Scrap your WMD program.
(3) Drive all the terrorist groups out of Syria.
(4) Stop supporting Hizbollah in Lebanon.
I feel confident it was a choice Bashar Assad simply could not make. Iran and Syria are of the same mind on these four issues.
Had Syria chosen to do those four things, it would have cut Iran’s flow of weaponry and the movement of terrorists to Hizbollah.
Syria was left without any military backup with the fall of Iraq, so Assad has chosen to shore up and expand its existing ties with Iran, and create new military ties with them for a joint defense against the west. The strong showing by the radical Shiite hardliners in Iran’s elections last month was a strong element that Assad considered in making his choice. Iranian Shiites will continue to have a direct pipeline via Damascus airport for massive shipments of military hardware
to the large Hizbollah terrorist army, which it has supported in southern Lebanon for years, as have the Syrians.
Contrary to today’s popular belief, the antichrist will not come out of Europe, but out of the area that includes Syria, Lebanon, and northern Iraq (See Special Prophecy Update 74B and Whole Numbered Prophecy Updates 62 to 69).
And, contrary to today’s popular belief, the 10 toes of Daniel’s statue and the 10 horns on his fourth beast, which are the same 10 nations that will make up the coalition of nations that attack Israel in the last days, will not come out of Europe, but out of the southern half of the old Roman Empire, which included lands from Morocco to Iran, and as far north as Turkey (See Prophecy Updates 54 and 78).
Daniel 2:42 – And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
Daniel 7:24 – And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
Revelation 17:12,13 – And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power
as kings one hour with the beast. [13] These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast
End Archive Prophecy Update Number 161C
Begin Jerusalem Post Article
Eye of the Storm: The ‘Iranization’ of Syria
AMIR TAHERI, THE JERUSALEM POST
November 1, 2006
While there is much talk of continued Syrian machinations in Lebanon, little attention is paid to an Iranian plan to remodel Syria into a Khomeinist state.
The Teheran-Damascus axis that challenges the United States in the Middle East was first formed in 1980 when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in the hope of destroying the newly created Islamic Republic.
At first, the Khomeinist regime in Iran and the Ba’athist dictatorship in Syria seemed unlikely allies. The Khomeinists followed a radical Shi’ite ideology aimed at global jihad in the name of their brand of Islam. The Syrian Ba’athists, on the other hand, were secularists inspired by an Arabized version of National Socialism aimed at uniting Arab countries under one flag and one party.
The Iran-Iraq war brought the two together for a simple reason: the Syrians knew that if Saddam won he would become the unrivaled Arab supremo, marginalizing the Syrian Ba’ath and eventually toppling the regime of President Hafez Assad. The mullahs knew that only Syria could prevent a unified Arab bloc to back Saddam.
The mullahs had to pay for Syrian support in the form of cut-price oil and an annual cash handout of $150 million. In 1982 the two furthered their alliance by sponsoring the Lebanese branch of Hizbullah.
All along, however, the Syrians were careful not to be totally hooked to the Iranian strategy. Hafez Assad insisted on meeting every American president and maintained close contact with Washington. He was also ruthless when it came to Islamist tendencies, even if that meant massacring thousands of people. Even in Lebanon, Assad did not put all his eggs in the Iranian basket and insisted on having his own Shi’ite outlet in the form of Nabih Berri’s Amal movement.
To underline their difference, the Syrians also made a number of small but significant gestures. For example, they refused Iranian demands that women be kept out of official ceremonies attended by visiting Khomeinist dignitaries, or that no alcohol be served on such occasions.
“Syria is Syria and Iran is Iran,” Syria’s then defense minister Mustafa Tlas told a reporter in 1986. “We cannot live like them and they cannot live like us. But we can work together.”
Today, Tlas may well have much to worry about. For there are signs that the Islamic Republic is determined to export its ideology to Syria. Teheran believes that only an Islamicized Syria would be a dependable ally in driving the US out of the Middle East, wiping Israel off the map, and creating a new Islamic “superpower” with Iran as its “core component.”
According to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad secular anti-imperialism, including Ba’athism, has failed to halt the advance of the American “Great Satan.” Today, only militant Islamism can fill the gap left by the disintegration of the USSR and Communism as global challengers to “imperialist hegemony.”
TEHERAN STRATEGISTS, working on the assumption that Israel and the Islamic Republic will clash at some point, regard Lebanon and Syria as part of the Iranian glacis. It was to secure Lebanon and Syria as strategic assets that Teheran launched its plan for the “Fertile Crescent.”
The first phase of the plan consisted of an Iranian-sponsored campaign last year to cast suspicion on elements in the Syrian Ba’ath known for their opposition to Khomeinism.
Hundreds of Ba’athist cadres, including senior figures, were retired or driven into exile. Cadres with what is euphemistically called “better Islamic sensibilities” have taken their place.
Many of the new rising stars have some experience of Iran, having served there in diplomatic, military and intelligence capacities on behalf of their government.
In Syria today, having an “Iranian flavor” is as useful for an individual’s career as a Soviet one was in the old days.
President Bashar Assad’s purge of the party, the army and security services of secular elements has, in turn, increased his vulnerability to conspiracies by the excluded cadres. Some of those cadres have formed alliances with the regime’s Sunni fundamentalist and democratic opponents. That, in turn, has increased Assad’s reliance on Iranian security and the Lebanese branch of Hizbullah. Sources in Damascus claim that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Hizbullah have assigned special units to protect Assad, if and when he is threatened by domestic enemies.
Teheran has also succeeded in killing what Dr. Hassan Abbasi, Ahmadinejad’s strategic guru, has called “the American temptation” in Damascus. That “temptation” came to the fore in 2003 when Assad surrounded himself with Western-educated technocrats and diplomats who wanted him to switch to the American side in the wake of regime change in Baghdad.
Since then, however, the Syrian officials branded by Abbasi as “Emrikazadeh” (struck by America) have been silenced or force to change tune. Teheran has successfully peddled the fear that Syria may be a target for American “regime change.”
ONE OTHER development has forced Syria closer to Iran: The murder of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri in 2005 destroyed bridges between Damascus and moderate Arab capitals. Today, hardly a single Arab regime is prepared to maintain friendly ties with Syria, let alone prop up the Assad regime. At one stroke Syria lost the annual stipend of $250 million that it had received from Saudi Arabia since 1991. The more isolated Syria becomes the more its leaders are forced to depend on Iranian power.
To protect himself against alleged US plans for “regime change,” Assad is leaning on the mullahs who also want to change his regime.
Last June Syria did what it had not done even during its alliance with the USSR, and signed a defense pact with the Islamic Republic.
The pact gives Iran direct access to the Syrian military at middle and senior levels, provides for joint staff conversations, harmonization of weapons systems and training, and military exercises. Under it, any attack on either partner would be regarded as an aggression against the other. One result of the pact has been a fourfold increase in the number of Iranian military and security personnel in Syria.
“Iran is trying to play the role that the Soviet Union played in Syria during the Cold War,” says a former member of Assad’s cabinet. “It is the regional big power and behaving like one.”
Several developments confirm that view:
• Iran has increased scholarships offered to Syrians, including for military training, from a mere 200 in 2001 to over 3,000 this year.
• Assad has lifted the ban on Syrians attending Islamic seminaries in Iran, allowing over 170 Syrians to attend seminaries in the Iranian holy city of Qom.
• The ban on Iranian cultural centers outside Damascus has been lifted. Iran has now set up 11 centers for Khomeinist indoctrination in Syrian cities including Aleppo and Latakiyah. By last September a total of 17,000 Syrians had enrolled in classes to learn Farsi and study the “philosophy of Imam Khomeini.”
• Iran is clearly flexing is economic muscle in Syria. Hundreds of Iranian companies, from banks to building contractors, are active in Syria, employing tens of thousands of people in a country hit by mass unemployment. This year the Islamic Republic is expected to become Syria’s second major trading partner, after the European Union.
• Syria has agreed to raise the number of Iranian pilgrims visiting the Zeynabiah Shi’ite holy shrine near Damascus from 150 to 1,000 a day. Critics claim that the pilgrimage is used as cover for the presence in Damascus of hundreds of Islamic Revolutionary Guard fighters at any given time.
• Iranian television and radio networks, broadcasting in Arabic, are now available in every Syrian home while other non-Syrian Arabic-language media are banned.
• Assad has granted 41 Iran-based charities permission to operate in Syria. These use the models of Hizbullah and Hamas by providing services such as clinics, schools, interest-free loan agencies and grants for weddings.
• Women who agree to wear Khomeinist-style hijabs and men who grow Khomeinist-style beards receive cash gifts and preferential treatment in getting jobs with hundreds of Iranian companies operating in Syria. Visitors to Syria would be struck by the massive rise in the number of young women and men trying to confirm to the Khomeinist “look.”
• Syria has also lifted the ban on Shi’ite proselytization, allowing hundreds of Iranian mullahs to convert Syrian Sunnis to Shi’ism. There are also reports of mass conversions of members of Assad’s own Alawite sect to Iranian duodecimain Shi’ism. Traditionally, Iranian Shi’ism considered the Alawites as heterodox because of esoteric elements in their theology. Last year, however, two ayatollahs of Qom with ties to the Khomeinist regime declared he Alawites part of the Muslim ummah, and authorized “theological exchanges” with them, opening the path for attempts at conversion.
• In Lebanon, Iran is trying to undermine Syria’s role by marginalizing Amal and establishing direct contact with the Christian bloc led by ex-general Michel Aoun. Teheran wants Berri and Aoun to put themselves under the banner of a front led by Hizbullah.
Last summer’s war in Lebanon that ended with Israel’s “greatest defeat,” according to Iran, has strengthened the supporters of a Damascus-Teheran axis within the Syrian leadership.
The Assad regime is the typical Arab set-up that cannot survive without the backing of an outside power. For a brief moment in 2003 and 2004 it looked as if the US could provide that backing. Since then, Assad has been left with no option but putting himself under Iranian protection. And that, in turn, makes a showdown between the US and the Islamic Republic that much more possible.
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