Global SITREP E10-15: Israel Threatens "Crushing Blow" on Lebanese Hezbollah

Update 05 January 2016:  That didn't take long. Exactly one week after posting the three sentences highlighted below (in red), Hezbollah has begun its attack upon Israel as ordered by Ayatollah Khamenei for the reasons outlined in the opening paragraphs of this SITREP. The next steps will be to witness the response Israel has promised will be the result of such attacks. 

That this attack occurs just as Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Arab allies have entered into a state of virtual war with the Islamic Republic of Iran fully exposes the overall eschatological mindset of the Twelver regime in Tehran. In keeping with the Twelvers fervent brand of political messianism and desire to hasten that eschatology by all means available to them, the greater the chaos in the Middle East the better their chances of self-fulfilling their eschatological expectations. War with Israel has always been the key to this expectancy. 

What is occurring on Israel's border with Lebanon and the Golan is far more than mere retaliation for Israel's dispatching into eternity of the baby-murdering Islamic terrorist Samir Kuntar; this is an emergent battlefield which could quickly envelope the whole of the Northern Front, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sea of Galilee with the eternal fate of the city of Damascus hanging in the balance.

28 December 2015: There is every indication this morning that Israel is prepared to strike "crushing blows" against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Whether those blows are preemptive or reactionary may depend a lot on exactly what intelligence Israel has collected regarding Hassan's Nasrallah's bombastic rhetorical threats against Israel. 

Preliminary airstrikes launched within the past 24 hours by the IAF appear to have occurred along the Lebanese-Syrian border; according to YNet the strikes were confirmed by Israel's Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold to have preempted the transfer of SA-22 'Greyhound' mobile SAM systems (Pantsyr S1) from Syria to Hezbollah.  These strikes are likely both a stern warning and a dare to Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah: if Hezbollah is feeling froggy - go ahead and jump, but the result will be a dead frog hitting the ground impaled on an IDF bayonet. See Samuel 13 for the strong prophetic relevance here.

Hezbollah's forces have been decimated in Syrian combat, not unlike their Iranian officer corps, regular IRGC forces and proxy militias. The recent combat death of IRGC Major General Hossein Hamedani, among the hundreds of IRGC combat deaths suffered in the last two months, has resulted in Ayatollah Khamenei's appointment and return as overall IRGC commander in the region their most senior veteran flag officer, Major General Mohammad Jafar Assadi, a/k/a Abu Ahmad. Major General Assadi was the IRGC commander in Lebanon a decade ago so his appointment to return along with another thousand or so fresh IRGC troops may well be what lies behind Hassan Nasrallah's braggadocio regarding what he is sending to Israel in retribution of the recent assassination of the child murdering terrorist Samir Kuntar.

This also belies the seriousness with which Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei regards the overall situation in Syria where continued defeats will almost certainly provide cause to the Iranian Expediency Council's Assembly of Experts, led by Hashemi Rafsanjani, to call for the ousting of the Supreme Leader. After all, in Twelver-Hojjatieh ruled Iran there is the essential necessity for a Supreme Leader who effectively demonstrates the kind of "rightly guided" leadership for hastening the arrival of the al-Mahdi. Negotiating away Iranian nuclear weapons with the "Great Satan" is another sign of weakness in the velayat-e-fiqh this Ayatollah has come to personify, and is not something a Twelver truly worthy of his jihad can live with. Regime change in Iran is an integral theme of the Jeremiah 49:34-39 prophecy.

Therefore, attacking Israel in an attempt to instantly widen the war, and thus the al-Mahdi-hastening chaos that would ensue, appears to be what the current Ayatollah is counting on to maintain his position. A Syrian regional official from Quneitra, Ra'afat al-Bokar, confirmed this Iranian plan in telling the Fars News Agency the coming attacks will occur from Israel's Golan as well as from Syrian territory as well. This does not bode well for the longevity and well-being of Lebanon, Syria or Iran and is certainly in keeping with the multiple prophecies levied against them by the Lord's prophets of Israel.

The above map indicates the triangle-shaped area (left of the red-line) on the Golan frontier between Israel, Jordan and Syria where the Islamic State-aligned terrorists of the Liwa Shuhada al-Yarmouk (Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade) are known to have maintained predominant territorial control since 2013. An official IS announcement of a 'Wilayat Yarmouk' or 'Wilayat Deraa' may be only a matter of time.

Global SITREP B4-15: An Open Invitation to Kick In Iran's Nuclear Doors

Updated 4 March 2015: If the approaching 31 March 2015 deadline for the Interim Nuclear Agreement with Iran hasn't become big news yet, it soon shall become big news. Either the Interim Nuclear Agreement's collapse or its implementation will make big news. 

More importantly, as can be clearly discerned from PM Netanyahu's (embedded above) speech to Congress yesterday, either of those potential news items will be the foundation for an even bigger news item in the near future that I have inferred as the title of this SITREP: An Open Invitation to Kick In Iran's Nuclear Doors, otherwise known to students of Bible prophecy as Jeremiah 49:34-39.

President Obama's evil agenda in this regard was fully exposed before the entire world yesterday when he wasted no time at all in characterizing PM Netanyahu's speech, which he claimed he did not have the time to watch, as containing "no viable alternative" to a nuclear armed Iran.  PM Netanyahu's call for "a better deal" in which he specified the specific elements that would make it a better deal that Israel would not like, but could live with, also fully exposed the bankrupt nature of Obama's agenda.

However, and I must repeat myself here, PM Netanyahu made perfectly crystal clear that Israel CANNOT LIVE with the agreement that Obama is attempting to shove down Israel's throat. This forces us to stand with PM Netanyahu against a sitting American president in a time of war. And its not like everything I have ever written about Obama was not a prescient forecast that a day like this was going to arrive one day. By all appearances that day will arrive in the current month of March 2015.

What did Jeremiah prophecy?

The next question is... who will be kicking in those doors? I have touched on this subject before, here and here. It is a sure bet that Bible prophecy sites all over will be touting Jeremiah 49:34-39 as being what Israel will do to Iran now. But is that what Jeremiah prophesied? Did he say God will send Israel and Israel alone to execute His judgment? Or did Jeremiah say that God would send the four winds from the four quarters of heaven to execute this judgment? Bible prophecy comes to fulfillment precisely as it is written; God inspired His prophets to say what He wanted them to say, so we must pay close attention to what Jeremiah 49:34-39 says precisely less we fall into the trap known as 'newspaper exegesis.'

For Israel to not go it alone there are a couple of potentials that could bring about a coalition of nations striking to remove Iran's ability to enrich uranium to the weapons grade level, and to "break the bow of Elam, the foremost of their might." One might be a circumstance could be an IAEA revelation proving beyond a doubt to the P5+1 negotiating side that Iran did indeed have a secreted, undeclared parallel nuclear weapons program just as has now been alleged with Lavizan-3. Another circumstance that could suddenly arise is a North Korean nuke test. Immediately after the text U.S. high altitude radioactive isotope sampling and nuclear forensic analysis could reveal a unique signature isotope that could only have been produced in Iran.  Again, for the P5+1 negotiators it would be game over for Iran.

The next few weeks might will really be something, for I fully expect Iran to go all out in a mad dash to make negotiations over its nuclear program a moot point.

 Noon 3 March 2015: As PM Netanyahu was speaking before the US Congress, word came from Geneva that Iran has flatly rejected the so-called "sunset clause" that would mandate a complete halt to all Iranian nuclear work for ten years. Yes, the Ayatollah has thrown his black turban on the floor and flat-out rejected Obama's non-starter 10-year nuclear hiatus for Iran.

The single most important thing Bibi Netanyahu said today, and he was absolutely correct in saying what he said, was that no matter if Iran accepts Obama's "deal" or rejects it, either option before them leads to a nuclear weapon capability.  

So where does this truth leave the world-at large; what option remains available to stop the Iranian drive down either path to nuclear weapons capability?  This is not rocket science my brethren.  The only option left is the one which removes Iran's capability to enrich uranium to a weapons grade level, and that means destroying all of its enrichment facilities.**

**When I wrote the above underlined sentence I had not yet been afforded the opportunity to watch or even hear PM Netanyahu's speech, yet that sentence is virtually identical to what the Prime Minister said as he began his closing remarks. And he meant every word of it. Hopefully both Obama and the Ayatollah were listening intently.

Lavizan-3 Revealing by NCRI-US on 24FEB15

3 March 2015: The day of Israeli PM Netanyahu's much anticipated speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress is also the one-week anniversary of the NCRI-US revelation to the world of yet another previously unknown underground Iranian nuclear weapons site known as Lavizan-3. (Reference: Global SITREP E8-14: Another in a Series of Imminent Nuclear Crises with Iran Beckons) 

Consider this: WHY was it necessary for the Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives to invite the Prime Minister of the State of Israel to speak before the a joint session of Congress today?

A) Because he's basically a really nice guy and it was polite of him to issue the invitation?

-or-

B) Because if Barack Hussein Obama had been the U.S. President on December 7, 1941 America would have lost Word War II?

This anniversary comes complete with the fact that if the world's most prolific terrorist and Shi'a Twelver apocalyptic regime had nothing to hide underground at the Lavizan-3 site, then a near immediate invitation to the IAEA offering complete and unfettered access would have preceded by days the Israeli Prime Minister's much heralded arrival in New York City. Instead of addressing the NCRI-US revelations head-on in a forthcoming manner consistent with honest negotiations with the P5+1 partners what has arrived from Tehran via its usual toadies and lackeys is nothing more substantial than rampant obfuscation, derision and other assorted irrelevant non-technical debris. Garbage in other words.

It is most instructive to note that as the NCRI-US press conference was revealing the existence of Lavizan-3 a week ago, U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice was concurrently describing the arrival of Israeli PM Netanyahu in the United States as "destructive." Speaking of something being "destructive," it has apparently never dawned upon Ms. Rice that the Lavizan-3 nuclear site was under construction when Iran had allegedly halted all nuclear-related activities according to the 2007 National Defense Intelligence Estimate. How is it that a National Security Advisor to the President of the United States could be so ill-informed, so totally out of touch with documents this government has produced? Has President Obama been deliberately kept out of the loop on such important matters of state?

It is a near certainty that when PM Netanyahu addresses today's joint session of Congress he will present a very comprehensive and highly vetted briefing to our elected Senators and Representatives of what President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, in all of their oft claimed transparency, have been hiding from them over the course of several months now. It is the abject fear of the Obama Administration over what PM Netanyahu will reveal today that forced Obama to reveal at the last minute that the framework agreement being negotiated with Iran includes a minimum ten-year sunset clause. 

What also remains unacknowledged is that the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has the ability to unilaterally abrogate the framework agreement at the drop of his black turban. That alone is reason for Bibi Netanyahu to 'kick the tires and light the fires' of the Israeli Air Force's most capable strike aircraft. They do not require an Iranian invitation to kick in the doors of all of Iran's secret nuclear facilities.

Global SITREP A30-13: A Nuclear Iran

26 September 2013: It appears that the worst fears of many regarding a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Iran may well be realized, and we have a DEBKAfile article published yesterday and the Ayatollah Khamenei and IRGC-linked Kayhan newspaper published in Tehran this morning to thank for the confirmation of those fears.

Yesterday DEBKAfile published an article in which it reported that President Obama has been in direct secret negotiations (led by SECSTATE John Kerry) with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his newly elected sock-puppet president Hassan Rouhani. The core issue in the DEBKAfile report on the secret deal is that Obama has caved-in and accepted Iranian nuclear enrichment capability at 20% as well as all of the stocks of fissionable uranium possessed by Iran. Additional details are at the link.

In exchange for Obama's epic proportion cave-in Iran will agree to limit the number of enrichment centrifuges operating at its Natanz facility. The number of advanced IR2 and IR1 centrifuges Iran will be limited to is unknown. There is no mention of the many other Iranian enrichment facilities known to be in operation. Also completely absent are any undeclared sites involved in the Iranian nuclear weapons program, or what penalties might be incurred should Iran secretly execute the short hop from 20% to a weapons grade level enrichment of uranium. This sounds like a trust but verify secret deal with the IAEA in full control of the verify portion.

This morning the Kayhan newspaper published a front-page article under a red-letter banner headline declaring that DEBKAfile had revealed the details of the secret US-Iranian nuclear agreement. 

What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall of Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu's next Security Cabinet and fully-staffed National Security Council meetings. For that matter, as loud as voices might be raised anywhere in a near vicinity might suffice.

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.

####

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.

Ayatollah Khamenei: "Set Israel on Fire."

3 February 2013: It is interesting how the Jerusalem Post announces one thing with its headline, yet the article launches into a discussion of something that is actually benign in comparison.

As if the EU's non-recognition of the Shi'a Hezbollah as a terrorist organization compares to what the Ayatollah has decreed as his personal mission twelve years ago.

In the first place, Hezbollah has from its first day of existence been an integral part of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since its founding by Hassan Nasrallah in 1982 Hezbollah has been a a forward deployed branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The EU's failure to identify them as a terrorist organization seems a rather minor and blatant moot point, does it not? More than that, it's a patently stupid thing to be discussing at such a high-level think-tank of "global experts" in a conference setting.

Then, however, if you click the link to the main article URL you do get to the heart of the real issue facing the world-at-large and Israel in particular for the past twelve years.

Allow me to paraphrase two paragraphs of the article with all due emphasis:

Rafael Bardaji, is a former special adviser to former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. Bardaji, who attended a 2001 meeting between PM Aznar and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said when Khamenei was asked what his role within the Islamic Republic is he responded: “To set Israel on fire.”

It is a point of fact that Western leaders and other assorted talking heads are on record saying that they are waiting for hard evidence that Ayatollah Khamenei has issued a decree, a nuclear weapons fatwa, to Iranian scientists for the construction of nuclear weapons before launching preemptive military counter-measures.

It is not obvious to these Western leaders that the Ayatollah's response to former Spanish PM Aznar twelve years ago was the decree they have been so patiently waiting for? Is there some ambiguity in Iran pursuing nuclear weapons capability and the Ayatollah's stated role of "setting Israel on fire?"

The Iranian leadership, from the Ayatollah on down to his sock-puppet Ahmadinejad, will on a day-to-day basis to Western media and Muslims alike refer to Israel as the "Zionist entity." However, when they are being deliberate and direct in their comments they refer to Israel as Israel. Iranian intentions as decreed by Ayatollah Khamenei  in 2001 could not be more crystal clear.

The time for "coercive diplomacy" with Iran was over before it began. Military action against Iranian nuclear designs is now fully twelve years past its due date.