Sometimes reality itself can be so amazing, who needs storytellers and fake news to make things more exciting?

The Four Signposts is a reality that is amazing. I’m sure most of you, like me, found the Signpost interpretation astonishing, in one moment turning the cacophony that is the Middle East into ordered events all falling into place to fulfill God’s Word.

It looks like the same kind of thing is happening with Trump’s picks for his Cabinet positions. Events right here in America, with Trump’s picks, might be gathering the ingredients for the start of the Second Signpost. What do I mean?

We saw in this earlier post and its update that Trump is stacking part of his cabinet with neocons, the folks who brought us the First Signpost. And while neocons all by themselves might manipulate America into marching into Iran with the intent of replacing the regime, I think it is the proposed Secretary of Defense who might be the most dangerous. And you can’t make this stuff up.

Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary is retired Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis. He is not considered a neocon. Incredibly though, he has a personal vendetta against the Iranian regime. Where neocons might go after Iran militarily as part of foreign policy, it seems Mattis wants revenge on the regime that killed 220 Marines back in 1983.

Former Marine General Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis.

You can probably see where this is going. And no matter the best intentions and the best preparations for any army marching into Iran to stop the regime, there is this bit of God’s Word:

“I watched the ram as he charged toward the west and the north and the south. No animal could stand against him, and none could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great.”       Daniel 8:4 (NIV, 1984)

Mattis served in the US Marines for 44 years. Back in 2003, he was the top commander, as a Lieutenant General, of the Marines as they invaded Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein. From 2010 to 2013 he served as the top commander of CentCom – the US command region that covers the Middle East. Obama promptly removed him in 2013 because of differences of opinion with Mattis regarding Iran.

Jim Mattis is considered a top general and strategist. He is well read, intelligent, and respectful of his subordinates. He is able to quote “Sun Tzu, Ulysses S Grant, George Patton, Shakespeare, and the Bible.” He never married, but has devoted his entire life to the Marines. Trump and others have compared him to Patton, being recognized that Mattis was probably the best general the US military had up to 2013.

But he has a personal vendetta against the Iranian regime.

This op-ed says,

“A well-known figure among current and retired military officers, Mattis has spent years warning publicly and privately about the threat posed by Iran, and that may be the most important thing to understand about the incoming defense secretary. Donald Trump spent his campaign talking tough about Tehran and blasting the nuclear deal, but he’s offered few specifics about what he would actually do in office.

That means Mattis — a hawk who describes Tehran as “the single most enduring threat to stability and peace” in the Middle East — will be instrumental in shaping the new administration’s Iran policy. He’ll also help determine whether Trump chooses to one day use force against Tehran.”

A very informative piece appeared in Politico, giving some more insight. It started,

“…all the ink spilled on Mattis as a snubber of convention, gifted combat commander, sophisticated strategist, ardent bibliophile and reader of dead Romans misses the most important fact about him: Mattis is a Marine. The Marines aren’t just another service, like the Army, Air Force or Navy. They are a tight knit military tribe, with their own beliefs, myths and philosophies. They view themselves as elite, different from the other services. They’re the closest thing our military has to a cult.” (emphasis mine)

I found that interesting. If the Marines were to go into Iran we would see an army following a “cult” up against another army but of zealots following their own cult: that of defending the supreme leader and spreading the Iranian Revolution.

The Politico piece goes on to say,

“Mattis’ Iran antagonism also concerns many of the Pentagon’s most senior officers, who disagree with his assessment and openly worry whether his Iran views are based on a sober analysis or whether he’s simply reflecting a 30-plus-year-old hatred of the Islamic Republic that is unique to his service. It’s a situation that could lead to disagreement within the Pentagon over the next four years—but also, senior Pentagon officials fear, to war.”

The article goes on to say,

“It was back in 2012, while he was still in uniform, that Mattis said that the three gravest threats facing the U.S. were “Iran, Iran, Iran.” In the years since his retirement in 2013, he’s been even more outspoken. He repeated his “Iran, Iran, Iran” mantra last April (in addition to an entirely predictable reference to the Beirut barracks bombing), during an appearance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies [(CSIS)], and then explained himself. Iran, he said, is “the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East,” and not really a nation state at all, but “a revolutionary cause devoted to mayhem.””

Matttis is right: Iran’s regime holds to a revolutionary cause devoted to mayhem. They do this (whether or not Mattis knows it) because the regime believes mayhem will cause their Mahdi – our Antichrist – to come out sooner. I wrote about this in Daniel Revisited chapter 10. It is the regime’s religion.

I recommend you read the entire Politico article. The author believes the Marines hold grudges, and that Iran is very much on the minds of many senior Marine officers.

The transcript of Mattis’ talk at the CSIS back in April 2016 is here. Read it for yourself. It shows a man who has many reasons for the US to militarily go into Iran.

Of course I believe any such move would be a disaster. God’s Word says Iran will invade. Iran will not be stopped. I would much rather have Iran begin and US forces be safe, than for a major American military force to be wiped out. But who knows, terribly, maybe this is part of the judgment this nation is to endure. But I hope not.

But with neocons taking up posts in the Executive Branch and a Defense Secretary with a personal grudge against Iran’s regime, the possibility of a nightmare scenario like this may start to be realized.

God literally help us.

Categories: America in the End Times, Signpost #2: Iran, The Signpost Perspective

Tags: Iran, Jim "Mad Dog" Mattis, Second Signpost