End Time Scenario

Some people believe we are living in the "end times." That is, the various prophecies about the destruction of our age and the beginning of a new one are coming true in these times. Certainly, there is remarkable consistency in prophecies about a period of destruction that is unprecedented. Earth changes caused by massive earthquakes and volcanoes, another nuclear world war, asteroid strikes and all manner of destructive forces have been predicted. Nostradamus, St. Malachy, the Hopi Indians and the infamous Mayan Calender that ended on December 21, 2012 all have indicated some drastic change in the world. Perhaps the most interesting of these predictions are found in the Bible, as they concern a coming Antichrist, the return of Jesus and a showdown at Armageddon.

In his books, "The Islamic Antichrist" and "The Mideast Beast", pastor Joel Richardson postulates that Islam is the beast mentioned in the Bible's Revelation and the Islamic Mahdi corresponds to the Christian Antichrist. Richardson goes into great detail analyzing the Old Testament prophets' pronouncements and the Revelation's predictions. His case is more in tune with our times in that, unlike the most prevalent eschatological beliefs, it isn't a revived Roman Empire that arises in the end times, it's a revived Islamic Caliphate (an Islamic empire ruled by a Caliph, or Muslim king). In other words, according to his analysis, Islam was created by an Antichrist and is the tool of Satan. The anti-Christian doctrine of Islam, the barbaric practices of Islamic Sharia law, Mohammed's self-serving revelations and the current brutal persecution of Christians in Islamic territories, especially by the demonic Islamic State, certainly support such a supposition.

Of course, prophecy, like all psychic phenomena, is questionable at best. Not only is it frequently wrong or even fraudulent, it is also often vague, generalized or, as with Nostradamus's quatrains, almost incomprehensible. As for the accuracy of Biblical prophecies, it takes a belief in Biblical inerrancy to begin with and an accurate interpretation of ancient pronouncements that are almost as perplexing as anything from Nostradamus.  Moreover, much of what protestants, in particular, regard as prophecy in Daniel, Ezekial, Revelation and so forth can easily be read as pertaining to the Roman Empire or events that have already occurred in human history.  Some interpreters also cherry pick segments of verse and try to apply them to modern times without taking into account the context in which these verses occur.  

So any effort to interpret prophecy in light of contemporary events is like an exercise in controversy, at the least. However, it is intriguing enough to elicit wonderment at the plausibility. Perhaps in trying to apply Richardson's thesis to current events there will be enough correspondences to undermine prudent cynicism. Consider this, then, as my own exercise in applying prophecy to current events. Bear in mind that it is pure speculation, a possibility and not a very likely one, that will probably be dismissed, especially for political reasons, by many if not all readers. However, it might also cause others to consider the possibilities.

THE STRATEGIC SITUATION AS OF APRIL 2015

The Turks want to reestablish the Ottoman Empire.  When the head of the Palestinians, Mahmoud Abbas, visited Turkey, President Recep Erdogan greeted him with a display of soldiers dressed in Ottoman garb from over the centuries. The Ottomans were also the Sunni Islam Caliphate, or head of the Islamic kingdom, another goal of Erdogan's.  Turkey, as a secular though Muslim state, used to have excellent relations with Israel, but Erdogan's Islamic  Justice and Development party reversed that and Turkey is now hostile to Israel.  In fact, Turkey is trying to support Iranian-backed Hamas in Gaza. 

The Muslim Brotherhood is a trans-national fundamentalist Islamic organization.  They, too, want to create a new caliphate with Jerusalem as the capital.  Obviously, they are hostile to Israel.

Obama's ostensible goal is to "democratize" the Middle East by putting Islamic regimes in place of the former secular ones.  However, Obama may have other ulterior motives, including working to promote Russia's interests.  There is good reason to suspect  that Obama may be a mole originally recruited by his mentor and surrogate father, the communist Frank Marshall Davis.  (See "I Stand With You.")  Obama has been working to weaken American military might, our economy and our influence in the world, and he hasn't much time left to complete that agenda.

The Russians have a de facto alliance with Iran, which would seemingly make Obama's alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood contrary to their interests. However, Russia's main goal is to break up and dominate the Atlantic  alliance, i.e., NATO.  If Russia can break Turkey, which has the largest army in NATO besides the United States, away from NATO, they would weaken NATO and open the Dardanelle Strait between the Mediterranean and Black Seas to neutrality, at the least.  Moreover, by fomenting turmoil in the Middle East, they weaken the West's ability to control the flow of oil.  Russia's anti-Western goals, including the alliance with Iran, are documented in a book, "The Foundations of Geopolitics", written by Russian fascists and used as a textbook in their military academies.

Obama, Turkey, and the Muslim Brotherhood are in a de facto alliance.  So far they have replaced  secular Arab regimes with Muslim Brotherhood regimes in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen. However, Egypt's own secular Army overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood and reestablished a regime hostile to radical Islam.  And Yemen is being taken over by rebels allied with Iran.  Their next target, notwithstanding the set-back in Egypt and Yemen, has been Syria. If they succeed there, Jordan will probably be next as a stepping stone to the ultimate target, Israel.

But Syria is allied with Iran, a Shia Muslim state at odds with the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and the United States.  Syria is about three-quarters Sunni Muslim with a secular Baathist regime while Iran is almost entirely Shia Muslim and a theocracy, so there's no religious affiliation between the regimes. Their alliance is geopolitical. Syria wants the money and arms provided by Iran and Iran wants a base for its proxies, the Hezbollah terrorist organization, on the border with Israel. It's a marriage of convenience.  So far, Syria under Bashar al-Assad has ruthlessly and successfully resisted being overthrown despite numerous Islamic organizations fighting the regime in a guerilla war.  

Iran has been busy extending it's own influence over Iraq's Shia-dominated regime and into Yemen, along with supporting its traditional terrorist organizations, Hezbollah and Hamas.  To overthrow Assad's Syrian regime and thwart the Iranian takeover of Iraq, Turkey and the US have created Islamist rebels in Syria, the most notorious of which is the so-called Islamic State.  The Islamic State's army has pushed into Iraq and taken over much of the northern oil fields. Iranian military have since helped the Iraqi push the Islamic State back in some places.

The Obama administration has been negotiating with Iran over their nuclear program and the outcome apparently allows Iran to eventually build nuclear weapons.  This has greatly upset Israel and Saudi Arabia, arch-enemies of Iran, and may force Israel to unilaterally strike Iranian nuclear infrastructure. That may be Obama's intent.  An Israeli strike on Iran would precipitate war.

But Iran is allied with Russia and the Russians say they will now supply Iran with the latest air defense missile  system, the S-300 (NATO designated SA-10 Grumble). Israel, if they do strike Iran, would have to do so before the S-300 is deployed.  Perhaps Russia, too, is trying to provoke an Israeli strike as soon as possible.  Russia, of course, has also antagonized the West by its invasion of Ukraine and its increasingly aggressive provocations, such as flying strategic bombers into NATO territory.  The message may be that Russia is prepared to act on behalf of Iran and will not be inhibited from expanding its territory into former Soviet lands now populated by ethnic Russians.

Meanwhile, Iran, busy trying to overthrow the Sunni government in Yemen with their Shia allies,  the Houthi, is facing air strikes there and possible ground assaults by Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf Sunni Muslim states. In reaction, Iran has dispatched warships to the waters off Yemen.

Faced with the Islamic State and Iranian aggression, the Saudis and other Sunni Gulf states have entered into a de facto alliance with Israel.  It appears, then, that the Middle  East may be on the verge of war.

Interestingly, the seer Edgar Cayce back in 1941 predicted strife in Libya,  Egypt, Turkey and finally in Syria.  He also predicted that World War 3 would start after Syria fell.

However, some people prefer to believe that the Bible lays out the above scenario as the battle between the King of the North against the King of the South.  The Antichrist leads the northern forces and when the northern forces win, the southern forces join them in the alliance against Israel which is then overrun and destroyed.  According to the Bible, virtually all of the tribes listed who go against Israel are located in what is now modern Turkey along with Iran.

So if these are, indeed the end times, then someone in Turkey or Iran is likely to be the Antichrist.  According to interpretations of Nostradamus, he saw the third Antichrist as wearing a blue turban, which would be characteristic of an Iranian Ayatollah.  However, according to Richardson, the description of the Antichrist and the Islamic savior, the Mahdi, match. They're likely to be the same person. The Bible says the Antichrist is "the Assyrian", presumably someone from the territory of the Assyrian empire, centered in what is now northern Iraq, that once stretched over much of the Middle East from southeastern Turkey to Egypt.  That would preclude the Antichrist being an Iranian.

The Bible says that the "Antichrist" is anyone opposed to Jesus and that the spirit of the Antichrist is already loose in the world.  However, Biblical interpreters believe there's a specific person alive during the end times who is Satan's minion.  Whether the Biblical reference to a spirit being in the world refers to a general climate of evil or a spirit in the sense of a demonic or fallen angel is unclear.  There are even some who believe that the "dragon" who swept the stars out of heaven to fall to Earth refers to reptilian space aliens who inhabit human bodies.  If there is an person who is the Antichrist, there's also the question of whether there is one or more than one, and if one malignant spirit can inhabit more than one body at a time.  Nostradamus, for example, said that Hitler was an Antichrist, according to interpretations of his quatrains, but Hitler was certainly no worse than people like Stalin and Mao.

Many people have been called the Antichrist, including Barack Obama. There's a case to be made for him.  (See "Obama's Dream.") However, Obama is not from what was once Assyria, if that makes a difference.  Another possibility is Recep Erdogan, president of Turkey. He may be the reincarnation of Hitler and many of Erdogan's followers consider him to be a God.  Erdogan was born in Georgia and that was not under the Assyrian empire, however. 

Interestingly, in the Bible, it's claimed God is angry at Israel for signing a peace treaty with the  Antichrist. The treaty lasts seven years before falling apart due to the invasion of Israel by the Antichrist's forces. In 2005, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan visited Israel along with Turkish businessmen and while there said his Islamic party saw anti-Semitism as a crime against humanity and also said Iran's nuclear program was a threat to the world. Turkey started trade and military ties with Israel which led to what the Israelis called "perfect relations" with Turkey. It even included proposed sales of Turkish weapons to Israel. However, in 2009, relations started to sour, so much so that by late 2011 Turkey downgraded relations with Israel, cut military ties and expelled the Israeli ambassador.  By 2012, seven years after the Erdogan visit, Turkey was in a de facto alliance with Hamas, sending them as much as $250 million per year.

The Bible says Damascus is utterly destroyed. So, could the Turkish/Iranian alliance have nuclear weapons? Pakistan has nuclear weapons and that country is increasingly Islamist and radicalized against the United States. And Iran, of course, is trying to build nuclear weapons and already has the missiles to deliver them. Iran is thought to be close to having a nuclear weapon, but its actual status is unclear. Iran has close technical relations with North Korea, another country with nuclear weapons. Could North Korea have provided Iran with such devices already in the hopes that Iran would draw in the United States for a nuclear ambush? And how about Russia? Have they sold nuclear weapons to Iran? If Turkey or Iran told Russia they planned to go to war with Israel and, presumably, the United States, over Syria, for example, would Russia provide weapons? The possibility that Iran already has nuclear weapons can't be discounted.

Such an invasion by the "King of the North" would risk a response from NATO and/or the United States under normal circumstances. But the European NATO members are reluctant to save Israel because of their own restive Muslim populations (the Turks in Germany and the North African Muslims elsewhere)
who would be demonstrating in favor of  the invasion. In addition, many leftist parties see Israel as the problem in the Middle East and predict that with its demise, the region will become peaceful. And even if they did decided to save Israel, they simply no longer have the military capability to do it, at least, conventionally. But Britain and France do have a nuclear capability with which to threaten Iran and Turkey, however unlikely it is that they would actually use their weapons.  Moreover, the Russians may threaten to retaliate against any nuclear strike by NATO members. Even if the Russians didn't issue that threat, the Iranians could decide that as long as they've eliminated the heart of Judaism, they would follow up by destroying the heart of Christianity as a message to the West. So they might detonate a nuclear device in Rome, thereby eliminating what they see as the seat of rival Christianity in the Vatican and destroying much of the city.

It's Nostradamus who wrote that Rome would be annihilated and back in the Middle Ages, St. Malachy wrote a list of all the Popes who would ever live. The present Pope, Francis I, is the last one on the list and comes under the nickname of Peter the Roman.  He presides over a destroyed Rome.  The South African prophet, Nicholaas van Rensburg, predicted the Russians would invade Israel and Europe only to be stopped in Egypt and at the Pyrenees Mountains by US forces using new weapons.  He also predicted the destruction of Rome.

The Turkish/Iranian alliance might also tell the other European capitals that unless they cede power to their Islamic populations, their capitals will also be destroyed by hidden nuclear devices. They would likely all capitulate.

Even if this scenario were true, the timing is uncertain, of course. It could happen at any time, or never. After all, anyone could be excused for thinking this is the scenario of a raving paranoid. And unless I'm some kind of prophet, the odds are great that this, being a worst case scenario, is inaccurate. Obama is likely to be just a leftist, not a Manchurian Candidate, who believes America should be cut down to size.  On the other hand, those who believe in the Bible as a fount of prophecy will have good reason to believe that these are, indeed, the end times.