Global SITREP B6-23: A Disaster in the Making

 

UPDATED 25 May 2023: As posted here recently, the legion of Indications and Warnings (I&W) for a major event occurring in Iran continue apace. 

The civilian insurrection against the Twelver regime has ramped up despite, and in fact due to the numerous death sentences carried out against captured protestors. Voices within Israel say direct support to the civilian protestors is the best course of action. Were it not for the apocalyptic Twelver's nearly realized nuclear weapons ambition, this would be an excellent course of action, and in truth, is likely in-progress. However, it's not enough to cork the nuclear genie in a bottle. 

The prophecy of Jeremiah 49:34-39 indicates both a civil uprising and external swords being brought against the Twelver regime. This is a relatively long-term process of the Lord's declared judgment being meted out; to be sure it is a near-term yet drawn-out catastrophe for Iran. As as Jeremiah's prophetic Scripture makes clear, the ancient province of Elam is ground zero for the unfolding judgment. For their part, the Twelver's recently reiterated that any military attack upon their nuclear facilities and defense installations will result in all-out war. The regime is woefully ignorant of the Lord's hand holding against the "foremost of their might." A rude awakening and ultimate cause dismay among the regime's clerics.

UPDATE 27 May 2023: Eschatology Today noted quite some time ago that the prophecies regarding present day Iran found in Jeremiah 49:34-39 (as Elam) and Ezekiel 38:5 (as Paras/Persia) are distinct prophecies. It is time to make the prophetic distinction clearer than it has been until now.

In Jeremiah the prophecy is very specific in naming that part of modern Iran which was ancient Elam. Ancient Elam occupied a large portion of southwestern Iran. It is where Iran's nuclear crown jewel is located at Bushehr, and several other of Iran's clandestine nuclear sites are also located. When Israel's leadership decides to strike and neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat, as was done in Iraq (1981 at Osirak south of Baghdad) and Syria (Al Kibar, Deir Ez-Zor province) previously, the region of ancient Elam will be the focus. This region in total encompasses the provinces of Bushehr, Fars, Isfahan, Khuzestan, Lorestan and Ilam. 

As Jeremiah's prophecy makes clear, this is where Iran's judgment through military action (the sword) begins. This is where the foremost of their military might is located. Much of the rest of Iran's external military power as controlled by the IRGC Qods Force (QF) is itemized in the below graphic.

The strikes upon Iran will undoubtedly bring proxy responses against Israel from Syria (Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49:23-27), Lebanon, Gaza and the fifth column proxies in Judea and Samaria (Psalm 83, Isaiah 11:12-14 and Ezekiel 28:24-26). Jordan will also join in with this group of enemies. They all lose this war badly, some cease to exist as nations, others become vassal states. The overall sum of these prophetic fulfillments results in the prophetic narrative concerning Israel found in Ezekiel 38/39. 

That sum boils down to Israel, immediately prior to the 70th Week of Years, dwelling safe and secure, without walls, bars or gates and not even considering the losses endured by Russia in its long-term military investments in Syria. Ezekiel 38/39 is a very brief war of retribution and as an attempt to conquer and plunder Israel. Ezekiel 38:5 is where we find Iran (as Paras) a militarily reduced Iran at that, with Libya (Puwt) and Sudan (Kûwsh), and which may include Horn of Africa nations as well. Iran at this time is not a major power and is lumped in with other minor powers like Puwt and Kûwsh in support of the the primary force, a coalition of what remains of the Russian military and its Caucasian and Central Asian allies.

In Jeremiah 49, there does not appear to be a nuclear war element, although the radiation released from strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities will cause a mass exodus to locations around the globe. In Ezekiel 38/39 there's no question about it - nuclear exchanges are certainly a part of that brief war against the participants in it. 

Marana'tha!

Global SITREP C3:19: Elam and Iran in History and Prophecy

Elam/Iran  Susa/Anshan

27 June 2019: Elam and Iran (Paras), from the biblical prophetic perspective, are they the same or different? There are, according to the conducted Eschatology Today research, as many differing opinions or interpretations of this question as there are maps or drawings which depict the territory of ancient Elam within what we know today as the Islamic Republic of Iran (Paras). What appears as a fact is that ancient Elam does not exist today, but within its ancient territory are several provinces of the present Islamic Republic of Iran. Perhaps that is all we need to know about the subject. But maybe there is more. This discussion of the "more" will be brief but detailed overview of the Biblical and historical perspectives.

The Biblical Perspective

Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel all referenced this land within the prophecies given them directly by the LORD God, or in the case of Daniel, by His angelic messenger Gabriel. One question that arises is why Jeremiah's prophecy (Jer. 49:34-39) only refers to Elam, and Ezekiel's prophecy (Ez. 38:5) only refers to Iran (Paras). Not many venture futher to acknowledge that Ezekiel also referred to Elam during the time of his prophetic ministry. 

Ezekiel 27:10 refers to Paras (Iran). Then in Ezekiel 32:24 the prophet speaks lamentations upon the nations that will go down into the pit having been conquered by the sword (war). Among them is Eylam (Elam), gone into the pit,; conquered for having caused "their terror in the land of the living." With Elam in the pit is also Asshur (Assyria), Meshech, Tubal, Edom, Sidon and Egypt). So here are two example of Ezekiel using both terms for modern Iran in the same general time period (circa 580 BC).

The Historical Perspective

In those ancient times Elam had been an established political state for a couple of millennia in the general region of Iran we know today as the province of Khuzestan when Jeremiah and Ezekiel received their prophecies. Back then Elam was a contemporary of Akkadia and Sumeria. Elam emerged from that domination circa 1300 BC, and over hundreds of years there emerged within Elam two regional powers, Susa, with which we're eminently familiar from the Old Testament, and Anshan. In those ancient days the kings of Elam were known as "the king of Elam and Anshan. 

Then, circa Nebuchadnezzar the First (Nebuchadnezzar I) reign, about one-hundred some-odd years prior to King David's rule in Israel, the western half of Elam came under the control of the Babylonian Empire, while in the east, in Anshan, the Achaemenids began establishing what would come to be known as the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Before taking on Babylon, as the Bible recounts for us, successive kings of Anshan (Achaemenes, Teispes, Cyrus I, Cambyses and finally Cyrus II (Cyrus the Great 559 BC) took all nations and empires east of the Tigris River, until the sack of Babylon, as we know from Scripture. The languages of this second of the great world empires after Babylon was Persian, Elamite, Akkadian and Aramaic as the official language of government.

The point here is that from a bible-based eschatological perspective, Elam and Persia are virtually synonymous. This is why Ezekiel used both names. And this is how Eschatology Today interprets Jeremiah 49:34-39 and Ezekiel 38:5 as referring directly to the modern-day Islamic Republic of Iran. In the days of Jeremiah and Ezekiel both Elam and Anshan (proto-Persia) were located within the same geographic region of southwestern Iran.

Global SITREP E2-14: 2015 Crescendo Coming

9 November 2015: I used the metaphor in SITREP D10-14 of the proverbial can having been kicked in darkness down the road as far as possible. Now I'm going to revise that to say there's more than one can, there are several of them. I think 2015 will be the year in which the real issues these cans represent either explode or are tossed into the rubbish bin of history. Many of these cans have their origins in the actions or inactions of the Obama Administration. These are the crescendos coming in 2015.

One of the most urgent is the Iranian nuclear issue. Under the U.S. Obama Administration the artifice of negotiating with Iran's Shi'a jihadists over their nuclear program may have all but resulted in the Ayatollah's possession of several Islamic bombs and Israel's realization that: a) PM Netanyahu has been thoroughly deceived, or b) the intelligence data Israel is likely to have provided to the US and IAEA was summarily ignored.

This morning all of Israel has been publicly informed in a published report in the UKs The Sunday Times that there are likely five times as many advanced design uranium enrichment centrifuges operating in Iran than are involved in the negotiation process. This means that even if Iran were to agree to halt the spinning of a thousand centrifuges, they'd still have another four thousand spinning their way to a fissile core for their weapons. The net result of this outright deception hands the Ayatollah his nukes and checkmates Israel through its acquiescing to the negotiations vice striking the Iranian program while it had every chance to do so.

This news comes from Olli Heinonen, the man who most recently was the IAEAs Deputy Director General of Safeguards. Heinonen now says Iran have have operational five times as many of the advanced carbon-fiber IR-2m centrifuges than Iran has admitted to possessing. The IR-2m centrifuges are also five times more effective than the obsolete IR-1 Iran has used in years past. 

So, where did Olli Heinonen get this new data? From "intelligence sources" which revealed that Iran had previously acquired the raw materials to have constructed several thousand IR-2m centrifuges beyond the one-thousand they've admitted to have operational, and that they have have them operational or on standby at enrichment sites beyond Natanz and Fordow. The deadline for an agreement between the E3/EU+3 (a/k/a P5+1) and Iran over its nuclear program is just 15 days away (24 November). 

Prophetically, Jeremiah 49:34-39 is the only Scripture we have to begin to understand what the future holds. On Eschatology Today we have discussed this prophecy at length previously over the past three years (SITREP B5:14; SITREP B7-13 and in "Jeremiah 49: Will a Coalition of Nations Move Against Iran?"). There is also Bill Salus' outstanding and highly recommended book published in July 2014, "Nuclear Showdown in Iran: Revealing the Ancient Prophecy of Elam."

Jeremiah 49: Will a Coalition of Nations Move Against Iran? (Yes, They Will!!)

27 April 2012: At this point, some 19 months since first posting this "work in progress," there exists for the first time very strong evidence for the existence of a coalition of nations prepared to move militarily against the nuclear weapons aspirations of the Islamic Republic of Iran in what I believe will be a highly probable literal fulfillment in our day of Jeremiah 49:34-39. (Please read the original posit on this interpretive theory down below for a refresher if that is necessary.)

Israel Defense Forces Chief-of-Staff Lientenant General Binyamin "Benny" Gantz informed the world yesterday of the existence of a coalition of nations who are prepared to execute offensive, preemptory military strikes on Iranian military targets should it become necessary to do so. While not specifying which nations would join Israel in striking Iran, LTG Gantz was completely unambiguous in the words he used:

 "The military force is ready, not only our forces, but other forces as well. We all hope that there will be no necessity to use this force, but we are absolutely sure of its existence."   

 There is no doubt in my mind that the Shi'a Twelver regime in Iran hold that the acquisition of an indigenous nuclear weapons and delivery capability as the key to achieving a chaotic and apocalyptic scenario in order to self-fulfill their own eschatological beliefs about an Islamic messianic figure known as the al-Mahdi. In this context it is simply not possible for the Iranian regime to abandon its eschatological beliefs any more than it would be for the Bride of Christ to abandon the blessed hope of the Harpazo. Therefore, it does appear that full-scale regional warfare in the Middle East and Southwest Asia is a very near inevitability given the closeness of Iranian technological success in achieving nuclear weapon capability. As has been have stated often times before, for Israel "Never Again" means Never Again. The Lord's will be done for His Divine purposes.

     

21 October 2011: It has been a full year since this article was posted here, and an awful lot has changed. Across the Arab-Islamic fundamentalist world there has occurred a sea change, particularly in the past 10 months of this year. Rod-of-Iron dictators who had held Arab Islamic fundamentalists at bay since the Iranian (Persian) revolution of 1979 have been removed from power by popular uprisings or are teetering on the brink of being ousted in the face of armed rebellion, to the killing of key fundamentalist leaders in the Islamic jihad movement. The world has focused on this so-called "Arab Spring."

But another key event has occurred this year which I have mentioned previously in this blog, and that is the ongoing armed clash between the Arab ruling House of Saudi Arabia and the apocalypse-minded Persian Shi'ite Twelver regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran. These armed clashes between Iranian-funded and inspired Shi'a have occurred on Yemeni soil, on Saudi soil and on Bahrani soil. With the recent revelation by the United States of an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the US and to attack the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, DC this Arab-Persian war nearly arrived on US soil. Understandably, the Saudi's are livid; they are demanding that action be taken against Iran, particularly the ending of its nuclear weapons program by force of arms.

This new paradigm finds the Saudi king and the Israeli leadership in agreement on what needs to be done with respect to the Iranian nuclear program, and the US is voicing its pledge that Iran will be held accountable for the assassination and embassy bombing plot. In Israel there has been conservative opinion expressed which holds that PM Netanyahu and his cabinet agreed to renounce their key principles in dealing with the terrorists of HAMAS to free Gilad Shalit from captivity in order to "clear his desk" for Israel to confront Iran head on. On Tuesday evening, October 11th Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke to his countrymen about a "window of opportunity that is about to be closed and connected it to geostrategic developments."

Is Iran now facing the prospect of a "perfect storm" coming from all directions external to its own borders? Are the words of the prophet Jeremiah below relative to this new situation? I tend to think they are, and I tend to think we may see their fulfillment to the letter as Bible prophecy is always fulfilled. Not only does Iran have this external threat to deal with as the prophecy details, but should the Ayatollah's regime be subjected to the right kind external non-nuclear military action then the door opens for the Iranian regime to see revolt from within its own borders as the second to last verse appears to indicate (emphasis added): "‘And I will send the sword after them Until I have consumed them. I will set My throne in Elam, and will destroy from there the king and the princes' says the Lord."

15 September 2010: Jeremiah 49:34-39

The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet against Elam, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying, “Thus says the LORD of hosts:

‘ Behold, I will break the bow of Elam, The foremost of their might. Against Elam I will bring the four winds From the four quarters of heaven, And scatter them toward all those winds; There shall be no nations where the outcasts of Elam will not go. For I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies And before those who seek their life. I will bring disaster upon them, My fierce anger,’ says the LORD; ‘ And I will send the sword after them Until I have consumed them. I will set My throne in Elam, And will destroy from there the king and the princes,’ says the LORD. ‘ But it shall come to pass in the latter days: I will bring back the captives of Elam,’ says the LORD.”

Although this is a work in-progress, I'd like to propose an interpretation whereby this prophetic "Judgment on Elam" from Jeremiah, which self-dates to the beginning of the reign of King Zedekiah, or circa 595 BC, will be fulfilled in the near future, possibly prior to the final fulfillment of Psalm 83, and definitively prior to Ezekiel 38/39. I'm anchoring this future fulfillment upon the historical fact that the Elamite Kingdom ceased to exist during the ten year process of the Assyrian conquest led by King Ashurbanipal which was completed in 639 BC. Since Before Christ dates count downward, the gap of time between these years places the prophetic "Judgment on Elam" as being given to Jeremiah by the Lord approximately 44 years after the Assyrian conquest of Elam, and thus providing a strong context for latter days fulfillment.

There is also the related issue of a clear distinction in those ancient times between the Elamites and the Pä·ras'/Persians (old Persian: Pārsa) of Ezekiel 38:5. The Persian's originated in the region east of Elam defined by the natural boundary created by the Zagros Mountains, and the eastern most extent of the Elamite Kingdom at the city of Anshan/Anzan (modern-day Tepe Maylan, Iran). With the collapse of the Elamite Kingdom the Persians slowly took control with the Medes of what we know today as modern Iran.

According to several maps I've studied, the ancient Elamite Empire could well be considered to constitute the core territory of the present day Iranian nuclear effort (i.e. the uranium mines and yellow cake processing facilities at Saghand and Ardekan, near Yazd; the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) at the Esfahan; the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, and the nuclear crown jewel at Bushehr). The Iranian nuclear weapons program is fully integrated with the Iranian ballistic missile delivery vehicles, and which together could well be interpreted as the the arrows of "Elam's" bow, "the foremost of their might" of verse 35 which is precisely the greatest strength of the current Iranian military.

In the next verse we read that the judgment comes in the form of "the four winds" (i.e. all points on the compass and intimating many nations) as being the "sword" the Lord sends after them. Also looking at the map of Iran, it does appear that Arab nations, the principle of which is Saudi Arabia, would be among those coming against Elam from the southern "wind" along with many other nations constituting the other three directions. This includes Israel and many other nations such as the NATO alliance, and clearly invokes the modern day notion of a warfighting coalition of nations such as we saw in the early 1990s Operation Desert Storm against Iraq and the present day Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

Some current context for this interpretive theory.

19 months ago (FEB 2009) there were more than a few highly qualified nuclear weapons experts at the Herzliya Conference in Israel - one of whom was Russian Major-General Vladimir Dvorkin - who said that the Islamic Republic of Iran already had already achieved a nuclear weapons capability.

This was reported world-wide by Bill Gertz in his "Inside the Ring" column. General Dvorkin was quoted saying, “Iran has developed the capability to produce and fire nuclear weapons.”

General Dvorkin told the Hezliya Conference Iran had acquired most of the components for building its nuclear weapon by 2003, and "The only way I see the problem being resolved is by military action.”

Former U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich told this same conference three years ealier that three Iranian nuclear weapons constituted a nuclear holocaust for Israel, and if used against the United States would result in the loss of two to three American cities, and the direct result of such an attack would be that "freedom as we know it will disappear, and we will become a much grimmer, much more militarized, dictatorial society."

It is a standing premise of this interpretive theory that while the "Global Oligarchists" are creating a hideous system of world governance ready-made for the coming Western Antichrist to usurp, they are not even close to being the suicidal maniacs of Jihadist Islam - such as the Shi'a Islamic Republic of Iran has created. I think it reasonable to expect them to act in concert - in a grand military coalition which they most certainly do control right now - to defend the world system they're creating from the Iranian al-mahdist apocalypse.

Arriving at a point-of-no-return regarding Iranian nuclear development, a point possibly defined by an Iranian nuclear test detonation, possibly occurring in North Korea instead of Iran, a coalition of nations attacking these many above ground nuclear sites might release radiation and necessitate the need for the population to seek refuge in distant places, as intimated in verse 36c: "There shall be no nations where the outcasts of Elam will not go." The Bushehr plant particularly meets this criteria.