Global SITREP B1-17: Jeremiah 49:34-39 Meets OSINT Head-On

Iranian Static Rocket Display

UPDATE 7 March 2017: The Global SITREP B1-17 update comes to us directly from an article by Heshmat Alavi entitled "Iran in Crisis." Alavi's article was published on Sunday, 5 March 2017 by AmericanThinkerdotCom. Combined with the original post of 26 February it was impressed upon this author to change to change the subtitle to Jeremiah 49:34-39 Meets OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) Head-On. The details within these OSINT reports, which I first read with a sense of complete astonishment, mesh in near perfect harmony with how the Holy Spirit led in the interpretation of Jeremiah's prophecy on this blog seven years ago.

I'll read anything by Heshmat Alavi simply because he is a tier one expert on anything to do with the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Middle East. He is a prolific writer, with articles appearing in all of the major Open Source outlets, from Forbes, to GatestoneInstitutedotOrg to FrontPageMagazine to TheTowerdotOrg. His articles focus on any topic causing crises for the Shi'a Hojjatieh mullahs ruling Iran to the inner mechanisms of its armed forces. But what caught my eye in this article was that it contained spot-on open source confirmation of the Eschatology Today interpretation of the Jeremiah 49:34-39 prophecy. 

First off, this article discuses the city of Ahvaz in southwestern Iran. For those who don't know, Ahvaz lies in the heart of what used to be the ancient land of Elam, the core geographic fixture in Jeremiah's prophecy. Ancient Elam today is known politically as Khuzestan, and Khuzestan is overwhelmingly populated by ethnic Arabs instead of Persians. 

It seems that the mullahs in Tehran, the IRGC in particular, have for many decades been embarked on a program of desertification in this region. These desertification policies have resulted in an ever increasing catastrophic environmental disaster, one in which studied projections indicate will result in 80 percent of Iran becoming desert not unlike Saudi Arabia's famous and largely uninhabited desert. The Iranians, as did Iraq's Saddam Hussein before them, are draining the marshlands and natural underground aquifers northeast of the disputed Shatt-al-Arab and Arvand Rud basin at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers.** 

Ahvaz, capital city of Khuzestan Province, ancient Elam

(NOTE**At a minimum, this activity might be considered as preparatory for the prophecies found in Revelation 9:14 (Sixth Trumpet-World War) and Revelation 16:12 (Sixth Bowl-Har Megiddo/Armageddon) in the drying out of the region for the passage of the armies of the kings of the East.)

So disastrous are these policies at present that the 14 to 15 million people currently living in the region of ancient Elam are being left to the mercies of monster dust and salt storms, several of which have occurred in recent months, and the people not happy about it at all. The result has been massive anti-government protests in the streets and calls for the people to rise up in revolt against the mullah's in Tehran. Short of that, the people currently living in ancient Elam will be forced to migrate to more habitable locales. Sound familiar?

Another familiar sounding crisis Alavi writes about in this article is the one where Iran finds itself with enemies coming at it from every direction as it did at the recent Munich Security Conference. To quote the author, "This resembles a vast international coalition against Tehran, inflicting yet another blow to the mullahs" ..."strategic interests."  An international coalition of nations which views Iran as the preeminent state sponsor of terrorism in the world, the Middle East and the unrelenting carnage in Syria in particular.

Iran also faces crises in its relationships with nations some see as her allies per the Ezekiel 38/39 prophetic scenario, namely Russia and Turkey. Turkey in particular is calling for Iran's "Persian nationalism" to be stopped in its tracks; that its sectarian (Shi'a) warfare against the Sunni Muslim Gulf States, and plan to turn Syria and Iraq into compliant Shi'a dominated states must be halted. And for Russia, its goals in Syria do not mesh at all with what Tehran has in as its agenda.

And then there are the national elections to be held this coming May. Ayatollah Khamenei is in ailing health and is seeking to secure the presidency for a loyalist by the name of Ibrahim Reisi instead of the current president Hassan Rouhani. A hand-picked Reisi being installed as president may cause upheavals not seen since the national riots of 2009.  In short all of these crises may come to a head with political instability as a cherry on top. They also present pretty clear indications that Jeremiah's God-breathed prophecy is, as all Bible prophecy is, right on target.

26 February 2017: Back in mid-September of 2010 Eschatology Today was the first Bible prophecy blog to commence publishing a fairly detailed exegesis on Jeremiah 49:34-39, entitled "Will a Coalition of Nations Move Against Iran (Yes, They Will!!)". The above link is for reference to the original post and its 2011 and 2012 updates. There is also the most recent in the series which was published in August 2016 as "Global SITREP C8-16: Iran Crossing The Rubicon." SITREP C8-16 also included four additional SITREPs in the same series: B5:14, B4:15, B5-15 and C8:15.

This SITREP has become necessary as the latest in the series due to new raw intelligence data which also relates directly to the following prophecies: Isaiah 17, Jeremiah 49:23-27, Psalm 83 and Joshua 13. The most noteworthy aspect from an intelligence perspective is the absolute omission of any of the various names for Iran in Bible prophecy, such as Paras or Elam, in these prophecies. Given current events in southwest Asia such an omission might appear as being in error. However, as with the rest of the Bible, Bible prophecy is inerrant; no mistake has been made nor given the source of Bible prophecy was an error ever possible. Some other unmentioned and internal centrifugal force is clearly at play. That's where the new intel may have revealed with some specificity what those forces are.

In a nutshell, it's the Iranian-led war in Syria acting as the causation for these centrifugal force issues, However, that's just a headline, a macro view which misses the essential details of the effect of the Iranian-led war within Syria, and Lebanon. That centrifugal effect is a fracturing within the Shi'a sect of Islam between Persian and Arab Shi'a, and even Pakistani Shi'a, brought in to fight for the Ayatollah and the Iranian commander, General Qassem Soleimani. 

The astounding thing about this intel is that it comes from within Lebanon, from Beirut, and it was published just this morning in the Lebanese media organization that resulted from the Hezbollah assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on 14 February 2005. That media is known as Ya Libnan  (Oh Lebanon)." The link is well worth reading for however long is remains an active URL on the internet, but I will provide an exsum of its content below, for the record.

Ya Libnan is the voice of the resistance against Iranian Shi'a domination which came with the establishment of Hezbollah by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Qods Force (QF) in 1982. Hezbollah was established as the most-forward deployed unit of the IRGC-QF in 1982. Ya Libnan is running a virtual gauntlet of Iranian retaliation with the publication of the article today as it speaks only on the periphery of the very serious issues that exist between the IRGC-QF and Hezbollah. 

The focus of the article is about how the Arab Shi'a militia (from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Pakistan) see themselves as merely "cannon fodder" for the Ayatollah and IRGC-QF commander Soleimani. This mindset is due to something I myself have experienced directly, and it is summed up with two words: Persian arrogance. Persian arrogance is by its very nature extreme and unrelentiing. It is quintessential political micromanagement, and by definition it is the kind of political micromanagement that loses wars instead of winning them. It's as if the Ayatollah were Cyrus the Great re-born. This arrogance is causing friction to the point of open resentment within the Iranian-led forces engaged in the current war. 

Left to its own devices, this kind of centrifugal force could lead to an unprecedented schism within Shi'a sect of Islam, the center of which is in Iran. It could, and likely will lead to an Iranian defeat in Syria and Lebanon. That would leave Hezbollah alone to face Israel on the northern front as both Joshua 13 and Psalm 83 indicate. It could lead to the destruction of the Syrian state as Isaiah 17 indicates, and it could lead to Iran facing an international coalition of nations by itself and stripped of the strategic depth afforded to it by Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. It could well be the reason Iran appears as a second-rate power in the prophecy of Ezekiel 38-39.

Another, aspect is that from its inception as the most forward deployed Iranian military force Hezbollah had been designed for confrontation against Israel. Yet the war in Syria is literally consuming Hezbollah like some flesh-eating bacteria. This has left Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to issue insane attempts at face-saving such as rocket strikes against Haifa's ammonia chemical plant and the Dimona nuclear complex in southern Israel. Truth is, the Arab Shi'a know as well as the rest of the world that Nasrallah is just another of the Ayatollah's sock puppets. Iran would risk everything to cut Nasrallah and Hezbollah loose on Israel. I've not yet found a direct reference to this in any of the Bible's prophetic passages; Isaiah 17 maybe, but, again, there's no mention of Iran in that at all relative to the literal text.

Known ranges of Iranian ballistic missiles

The above image relates directly to Jeremiah 49:34-39. Eschatology Today was also the first Bible prophecy blog to reference the fact that the crown jewel of the Iranian nuclear program lies within the territory of ancient Elam. Yet, in looking at the prophecy deeper there's only the widely publicized subjective assumption that it has anything to do with Iranian rockets fitted with nuclear warheads. It is a fact that none of Iran's strategic rocket forces have tested and proven such a capability. Neither has its partner in nuclear crime, North Korea, for that matter. It is mostly the presumption of long range missiles delivering nuclear warheads that drives the Bible prophecy blogosphere and conference circuit narrative that Jeremiah 49:34-39 is about such a potential.

However, what the prophecy does say is not that the nuclear program will be destroyed, but that God will break the bow, which is the foremost of Iran's might. The bow is a metaphor for the technology to launch a projectile - be it a low-tech arrow or a high-tech modern-day missile or rocket. Simple question: What good is even one nuclear weapon if you cannot deliver to the intended target? Simple answer: The nuclear weapon is worthless and actually poses a greater threat to the territory and the population of Iran than to any of its enemies. Who knows what safety mechanisms Iran may or may not have included on a clandestinely manufactured nuclear weapon? Or its nuclear fissile production facilities? A Stuxnet-like attack can do as much or more to move people like refugees from radioactive fallout zone than a conventional military attack. Cases in point: Chernobyl and Fukushima, and neither of them were caused by a cyber attack..

So, Jeremiah is telling us point blank that from the Lord's perspective it is the bow that is the foremost of Iran's might, not their potential for nuclear warheads. The Lord is certainly aware of the potential illustrated by the image above and what it would mean to Israel's longevity. In simple words: Not gonna happen. The bow that Iran possesses will be destroyed. No bows, now arrows get launched.

And then there's the metaphor phrase "I will bring the four winds from the four corners of heaven" to scatter the people of this country to all of the other countries of the earth. What does this metaphor mean? Jeremiah's contemporaries Ezekiel and Daniel also used this phrase, as did Jesus in His Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:31) and John on Patmos in Revelation 7. 

The metaphorical meaning is generally with respect to the whole earth, and also with respect to an extraordinary or devastating event. Ezekiel used it with great effect concerning the valley of dry bones and the restoration of modern Israel after the Holocaust of WWII. Daniel used it with respect to the stirring up of the Mediterranean Sea region in which the world empires of his vision would hold ultimate power until the next one overtook it, all the way to Rome, and the present day.  And finally, Revelation 7 uses the same metaphor with respect to the angel who holds back four other angels from harming the earth during the 70th Week until the 144,000 of Israel have been given the seal of the living God on their foreheads. In this context the metaphor has everything to do with Divine judgment on a global scale, not unlike the Flood of Noah's day. 

Given what Iran has done and wants to do, it is Divine judgment that Jeremiah's use of this metaphor is most likely intended. That judgment scatters Iranian people to nations all over the planet; that judgment looks and sounds a lot like a military regime change is coming to Tehran, probably just before the 70th Week if not during it.