Global SITREP A22-13: The Syrian Situation

UPDATE 27 August 2013: Recent reports are suggesting that a 'last minute' diplomatic accord with assurances to avert strikes on Syria in response to the al-Assad regime's alleged use of chemical weapons on civilians last Wednesday have failed. While the reports are almost certainly accurate in stating that this last ditch effort failed, that is not what is critically important about the reports. What is critically important about them is that the attempted accords to forestall the strikes were not made directly with the al-Assad regime in Damascus, Syria, they were in fact face-to-face efforts with the the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran!  Bashar al-Assad is no longer the power to be reckoned with in Syria, but the Islamic Republic of Iran is the power to be reckoned with; it is the de facto government controlling what's left the Syrian regime and its military forces.

This confirms what many inside the Washington DC Beltway have known for some time now. It confirms what was related to them recently by Ahmed Jarba, the President of the opposition Syrian National Council. As Jarba informed Washington, "the real rulers of Syria are the Iranian Revolutionary Guard with the participation of Hezbollah fighters." Jarba went on to point out the true nature of the tactical situation is Syria is that the Al-Assad regime has in fact already collapsed and that what remains of it and at least half of its territory is under the full control of Iranian armed forces and Hezbollah. 

The implication of these new facts on the ground in Syria are nothing short of monumental when it comes to our understanding of Bible prophecy as long discussed on this blog and elsewhere regarding Isaiah 17, Jeremiah 49 and the other related prophecies. This also points out the folly in the US and NATO allies planning to strike Syria for things which have been determined and executed by the apocalypse-minded Iranian regime 900 miles to the east. Consider this: the apocalyptic Persian Shi'a in Iran are the driving force behind what may well lead to the decimation of Arab Sunni Islam in the Levant of the eastern Mediterranean Sea caused by a WMD strike upon Israel.

26 August 2013: What if... What if the widely reported and anticipated Western-Sunni Arab military intervention in the Syrian civil war occurs within the next few days, is there Bible prophecy which predicts such an occurrence?  I believe there is.  Let's look at Jeremiah 49:23-27 (NKJV):

"Against Damascus.

“Hamath and Arpad are shamed,
For they have heard bad news.
They are fainthearted;
There is trouble on the sea;
It cannot be quiet.

Damascus has grown feeble;
She turns to flee,
And fear has seized her.
Anguish and sorrows have taken her like a woman in labor.

Why is the city of praise not deserted, the city of My joy?

Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets,
And all the men of war shall be cut off in that day,” says the Lord of hosts. 

 “I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus,
And it shall consume the palaces of Ben-Hadad.""

Verse 23 opens with two cities in northern Syria, which I believe equate to Hama and Homs, hear bad news about Damascus which causes great fear and sorrow. Some great trouble comes into Syria from the West, from the Mediterranean Sea. It causes Damascus great fear, pain and anguish as a woman in the midst of childbirth. This seems to foretell exactly what real-world events are now pointing towards.

And what if this intervention is met with the promise of the Al-Assad regime to retaliate as noted specifically in the main part of the SITREP below. What if Israel and northwestern Jordan are the targets of Al-Assad's retaliation? (Links to a Times of Israel report) They may well be as the prophecy of Isaiah 17 indicates. If so, then we clearly have an Isaiah 17 fulfillment imminently before us, with the potential for the rest of the directly related prophecies to follow "like a flood." Jeremiah 49 is definitively among these prophecies.

 
Consider this update to be my most urgent "watchman on the wall" warning to date. It is an "Alert Condition Red." If the NATO-Sunni Arab alliance strikes on Syria do materialize, as now appears to be the case, then they will occur without UNSC sanctioning as was the case in Libya two years ago. Russia and China most certainly would veto any UN Security Council resolution authorizing military intervention in Syria, and therefore UNSC approval is likely not to be sought by the interventionist powers. This appears to be the same template of military action as found in the attempt to invade Israel prophesied in Ezekiel 38/39.

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25 August 2013: Last Wednesday one of the belligerents in the Syrian civil war unleashed a genuine chemical weapon, a neurotoxin, within the confines of the Damascus governorate, in a suburb known as Jobar. The neurotoxin may have been a Sarin-based weapon, or possibly Tabun or Soman. Based upon evidence I have seen in uploaded videos, I'm ninety-five percent sure the chemical weapon was one of these three. What I am one-hundred percent certain of is that no one knows which side in the war was responsible for the attack.

The fact of the matter here is that while all of the secular world powers and belligerents are pointing fingers at one another for this chemwar attack, the one group that is not doing so is led by Mego Terzian, the President of the Geneva, Switzerland-based Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières). Mr. Terzian was recently quoted in global media saying:

"We are almost sure, even 100 per cent sure, that neurotoxic agents have been used, what type of agent we cannot confirm, who did that — rebels or government troops — we cannot confirm."

The problem here is that the powers that be external to Syria appear to be using this event pursuant to their agenda. For the U.S. and the Obama Administration this provides a perfect 'wag the dog' scenario to distract from the fully-primed Benghazi investigation and several other great scandals that are also approaching critical mass. For Syria it provides a credible deterrent against foreign intervention (air strikes or a no-fly zone) since the Al-Assad government in Damascus threatened in July 2012 to use its full and considerable chemical weapons arsenal (New York Times article, 23 July 2012) against those involved in any military intervention.

This is where we must pay very close attention to the Syrian threat. Would Syria retaliate against three U.S. Navy destroyers or the Western naval armada off its coast with non-precision chemical weapons? I think not. The most likely targets for Syria's chemical weapons would be in northwestern Jordan (i.e. "the cities of Aroer") where the Western-Sunni Arab land and air headquarters combat components are based, and Israel. Sound familiar? This should because it appears to be verbatim from the prophecy of Isaiah 17:1-2.

“Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city,
And it will be a ruinous heap.
The cities of Aroer are forsaken;
They will be for flocks
Which lie down, and no one will make them afraid."

Would Israel sit idly by as Western forces and perhaps central Israel itself came under chemical assault by Bashar al-Assad's missile forces? I think not.Thus I believe we will witness the fulfillment of these prophetic verses.

Just beyond the Golan and southern Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese frontier IDF armored forces have been massed as seen in the image above.  In Jordan the coalition forces are limited to headquarters staff, some F-16s and light-footed special operations troops whose primary function is to serve as a tripwire against Syrian expansion of the ground war into Jordan. Therefore, Israel holds all the military cards should the prophetic Isaiah 17 scenario become the reality I believe it will become in the near term. And on that occasion we will need to keep Isaiah 17:12-13 in mind as one of the inevitable results:

"Woe to the multitude of many people
Who make a noise like the roar of the seas,
And to the rushing of nations
That make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!

The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters;
But God will rebuke them and they will flee far away,
And be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind,
Like a rolling thing before the whirlwind."

These verses could just as easily foretell the subsequent final battle of Psalm 83 as they could foretell what becomes, at least initially, of the foreign military interventionists. We'll have to keep close watch as this Syrian situation intensifies into the full-scale WMD warfare being foretold.