This past Sunday, May 28, 2023, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won the second, run-off election for president. Receiving 52.14% of the vote, he defeated his opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
Erdogan will go on to rule Turkey, constitutionally, for another 5 years.
As I wrote about in this post, Erdogan can legally hold on to power until 2029 (assuming he wins elections, which he just did). If Erdogan is indeed the first and prominent horn of the Yavanese goat, the Third Signpost must begin by 2029.
This was yet another test that was passed by the Signpost theory of Bible end-time prophecy interpretation, for there is no other political figure in Turkey with the popularity, ego, and imperialistic mindset that one might think must be the goat’s first horn.
Categories: In The News, Signpost #3: Four Nations
THE FOUR SIGNPOSTS 
Had Kilicdaroglu won, it simply would have put the signposts back by a few years. Kemal’s opposition was fractured, and his presidency would have been chaotic, giving Erdogan’s cause time to regroup, reorganize, refocus, and come back even stronger next time.
I still say were at this time Iran to have positive and stable regime-change, it would put prophetic fulfillment back a hundred years.
For several election cycles, Erdoğan’s campaign song has been a rewording of “Dombra” (a millennium-old Central Asian song).
I found an English translation of the song:
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/recep-tayyip-erdo%C4%9Fan-recep-tayyip-erdo%C4%9Fan.html
Notice the song’s ending: “He’s the leader that people have been waiting for years, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.” Compare that with a millenniums-old prophecy about the end times: “And the rough goat is the king of Grecia [Javan]: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king” (Daniel 8:21).
@Jeff Ragsdale The Bible mentions repeatedly a large number of countries coming together in a coalition which are today mostly Sunni. A new Iranian government more accommodating to Western-style democracy might also prove less effective at rallying against Sunni separatist movements or invasions. An internally stable, yet less militaristic and conflict-ready, regime might allow even a relatively small Sunni force to roll right over them. Imagine an Iranian Joe Biden, if you will.
The people of Iran rallied behind the current Islamic regime against Saddam in large part because the fervor of the Islamic Revolution was still fresh. The people have since grown tired of most of Iran’s brute force that hasn’t gone into rockets launched at Israel being turned against them inside their own country. The Islamic Regime used brutality to try to shore up the gaps in popular support caused by lack of competence and accountability, which has exhausted the people’s patience. They don’t want to be ruled by any dictator of any background, but all the decades of power-wrangling at the top has left the foundations of belief in the central government shaky. If the few members of the regime not lost in delusions of their own grandeur and with some sense of the real lay-of-the-land were confident in Iran’s preparedness for war, they would have rolled over Iraq and the fairly weak Taliban in Afghanistan already, preparing forward bases in those countries for further conquests. The Taliban’s hold on power in Afghanistan is still weak and fragile. Only Pakistani air support has held them up this long. They can’t even keep clean running water flowing to their people.
Right now, Iran is watching Russia’s abysmal performance in Ukraine and wondering how they’d have to change their own army’s structure to avoid the same or worse if they were to invade another country, even one that looks relatively weak and unprepared. One thing they (those of the regime hardliners who aren’t completely crazy but who are greedy, and who wouldn’t mind a chance to plunder another country’s wealth) are looking for is another, final confirmation of America’s weakness and distraction. If Joe Biden wins the 2024 election, Iran most likely will invade some other country during his second term, or his replacement’s if he dies of old age while in office.
In the de-facto anti-democratic axis of Eurasia, China is right now in first place, while Russia is in second place and fading, with Iran only a distant third and having various competitors nipping at their heels for even that position. North Korea would be in third place if they had anyone next door to invade that wouldn’t crush them in response, but they’re boxed in geographically. The mullahs and the IRGC would love the chance to win a quick, overwhelming victory against a smaller opponent. It would give their men a chance to gain confidence and combat experience, while enhancing their image as a military power. Until recently, they would have dismissed the idea of invading any ex-Soviet republics because:
A) most of them are majority-muslim, and the regime doesn’t want to make enemies of even more countries with whom they supposedly share a common faith,
B) Russia under Putin is the Iranian regime’s ally, is much more powerful than Iran, and claims hegemony over the ex-Soviet sphere of influence, so Iran doesn’t want to have Russian peacekeepers chasing the IRGC off in full view of the Iranian and global public with their tails between their legs, and possibly cut Iran off from support that has enabled them to recover from the Iran-Iraq war and to withstand Western sanctions for this long,
C) China is still seeking to gain influence in that region with their Belt-Road initiative and doesn’t want to be seen by any of those countries as backing an aggressor against them. This is becoming less of a factor. The CCP just isn’t feeling the love from the rest of the world anymore. Threats of sanctions against them just aren’t the deterrent they used to be, but rather more of an incentive to hurry up and circumvent any Western blockade on energy resources or technologies critical to their defense industries. That makes their trade routes with neutral countries more important than ever.
Even if Iran was confident they could go their own way without Russian help, or that Putin was doomed and Russian help would dry up no matter what, they don’t want to lose their partnerships with both Russia and China at once. The question for Iran’s leaders with regard to these countries, both run by regimes of incompatible belief systems, is one of temporary relative advantage, not one of permanent loyalty. Russia under Putin has blown any chance of independent post-Soviet recovery, and is becoming more dependent on China by the day. If Russia fades too much, even China can’t prop them up. Russia is still a majority-Christian country. Western regimes, with their current bias against Biblical Christianity, would love the chance to dissect a weakened Russia and put it back together into some kind of Leftist, God-hating Frankenstein monstrosity even more evil than anything that has yet lived. Failing that, they could use a new, more overtly fascist post-Putin regime as a foil to distract from their own ever-crazier policies, like Stalin did with Hitler during WWII.
The danger of Islamist regimes and terrorist groups trying to seize Russian nuclear weapons in the event of a modern Russian collapse is actually much higher than the risk of China trying to do the same. China already has nuclear weapons of their own, and the ability to produce more. There is less incentive for China to take that risk. They don’t stand to gain as much with direct invasion and annexation as they would to create a new puppet regime over as much Russian territory as possible. Some Russian general, sitting at his desk watching his country implode for the third time and suddenly hearing of a Chinese invasion, might well decide, “What the hell, we’re done for anyway, so we might as well take everybody else down with us.”
Russia still has a more powerful, though less numerous, navy than China’s, but that will change this decade as Russia runs out of spare parts for their fleet under international sanctions. China will have to adjust to the fact that, as their navy surpasses Russia’s as the world’s largest challenger to American naval supremacy, more American naval power than ever will be headed their way. Putin never dreamed that Ukraine would last long enough to pose a serious threat to the entire Russian Black Sea fleet. At this point, if he doesn’t retreat, he will lose what remains of that fleet.
If a Republican with some backbone & competence wins the U.S. election in 2024, Europe might also turn around before they finish imploding. Democrats love to claim Joe Biden rallied the world and saved Europe and NATO. The fact is, though, that if Donald Trump had not scared them out of their complacency before Putin launched this all-out invasion of Ukraine and actually called out Russia’s behavior as a threat, even though the Left loves to pretend he didn’t, Trump’s response to Russian aggression was lightyears ahead of Sleepy Joe’s. The Democrats have undertaken no serious effort to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, and have even done the opposite. Iran has watched other Middle Eastern countries’ efforts to prepare for war come up short. Now Saudi Arabia wants to make peace,
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-saudi-arabia-agree-resume-ties-re-open-embassies-iranian-state-media-2023-03-10/
the UAE is pulling out of joint exercises with the U.S. and explores diplomatic relations with Iran,
https://www.barrons.com/news/uae-withdraws-from-us-led-maritime-coalition-facf34f3
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/05/us-not-notified-yet-uaes-withdrawal-gulf-maritime-coalition
https://en.irna.ir/news/85127280/Iran-UAE-to-expand-ties-via-gov-t-private-sectors-cooperation
and Iran is feeling confident in expanding relations even farther abroad in Africa and elsewhere while Biden dithers with threatening sanctions against small countries for not toeing the line with the U.S. imperial stance on their own internal affairs
https://en.irna.ir/news/85128538/Iran-FM-off-to-South-Africa-for-BRICS-meeting
https://en.irna.ir/news/85128388/South-Africans-inspired-by-Iran-s-Islamic-Revolution-in-their
https://www.reuters.com/world/brics-ministers-meet-push-establish-group-counterweight-west-2023-06-01/
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/museveni-says-uganda-wont-be-swayed-after-anti-lgbtq-law-triggers-aid-cut-2023-06-01/
If Hillary had won in 2016, Ukrainians would already be pledging allegiance to Moscow, not kicking it out of their country, and Putin would be lining up his next targets for conquest. There would have been European support and aid sent to Ukraine, but not enough to save them. As it is, even though Russia is losing, Iran still sent drones and advisors to help the Russians, effectively attacking a European country with military forces on the ground on that country’s own soil. If Russia had already won, Iranian forces would be on NATO’s eastern doorstep, and there would be no question of when the Second signpost might begin, because it would have clearly been already underway. That kind of boldness won’t go away overnight even if Putin’s regime collapses. If anything, Iran might feel that with their protector and patron gone, they have both an unprecedented opportunity to expand, and every reason to take advantage of it before the window closes. They are already lining up Azerbaijan in their sights, among other reasons wanting to gain their oil and gas, which draws investments from countries not as free to invest in Iran itself for the same resources found there, and to cut off their ties to Israel.
https://en.irna.ir/news/85128465/Should-Azerbaijan-be-expelled-from-OIC-over-Israel-ties
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/200877/Iran-rejects-claims-on-Azeri-nationals-arrested-in-Azerbaijan
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/372177
https://en.trend.az/business/energy/3756231.html
Conquering Azerbaijan would also allow Iran new opportunities to project power northward and more effectively threaten European interests, possibly allowing them to deter European intervention in the Middle East. That would give Erdogan his cue to directly exercise the military power he has long desired. If Erdogan saw no international outrage, but rather praise, for his intervention to save his Turkic neighbor and brother state of Azerbaijan, then that might cause him to feel confident enough to resolve other disputes by military force, like Cyprus, other Greek Islands, and maybe even mainland Greece itself. This would make Erdogan or his successor(s) an even better fit for the role of King of Javan, if they control territory on both sides of the Aegean.
Even if Iran has a regime change, that doesn’t mean that Erdogan would be inclined to show any mercy. On the contrary, if his heart is set on conquest, any sign of weakness from Iran would be like,
“When a wild animal senses a wounded victim, there is no pacifying their appetite. While Armenia continues to double down on its concessions of accepting Azerbaijani territorial integrity that includes Artsakh, the Azeri response this week is hardly optimistic. Dictator Aliyev, who has committed war crimes and ignored the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on Berdzor (Lachin), arrogantly declared that he will not negotiate with Artsakh. He said that the Armenians must accept Azerbaijani rule or leave and demanded a corridor through sovereign RoA territory (so-called Zangezur). He openly displays disdain for all Armenians, particularly those that he claims are his citizens in Artsakh. ”
https://armenianweekly.com/2023/05/31/rights-and-security-who-is-listening/
As Azerbaijan is doing to Armenia, so Turkey is likely to do to Iran if they get the chance, mullahs or no. Iran’s regime has already earned enough ill will from other countries that few would be willing to apply pressure to Turkey on Iran’s behalf, and not many would be inclined to send support to even a newly democratic Iran, any more than they did for the Free Syrian Army. Turkey is not the crumbling, fumbling, far-flung empire that the Ottomans were in their waning days. This is what gives Erdogan hope. Turkey is large enough to field a substantial army, yet small enough that people elsewhere in the world might, if casually looking over a map, ignore or overlook them. After all, most of the world looked the other way for decades while he bombed civilians in Iraq and Syria. Having constant connection to information about the world through the internet leaves citizens of developed countries with less of an emotional connection to people elsewhere in the world. They feel like they already know everything they need to know about the world, and can afford to ignore actual events. Seeing maps so small all the time makes people feel like distant events are small. Erdogan has been to the U.S., and knows that most people there have no idea who he is. All he has to do is advance under cover of a smokescreen, some kind of distraction elsewhere in the world combined with an exclusion zone keeping out journalists from the rest of the world. It’s what the late Ottomans and then the Young Turks did during the Armenian Genocide. Even if the newly free Iranian people were to call for help, the West is sadly likely to ignore them. The West is used to ignoring the voices of people from the rest of the world. This is why more people don’t pin their hopes on Western intervention to help them when they rise up against tyrants. America ignored the people of Libya even after the American ambassador there was murdered, and now the country is divided between Al Qaeda & the Muslim Brotherhood on one side, Iran and Vladimir Putin on the other.
Jeff, you did say specifically positive *and stable* regime change, for which case, even if you grant 100% internal stability and zero chance that a new regime would implode, historically new regimes do very poorly after taking power after a revolution in the face of sustained foreign aggression. They do better if they have a small nucleus from which they can, as you said in the case of Erdogan’s movement, “regroup, reorganize, refocus, and come back even stronger next time.” The French Revolutionary State had a small nucleus in the urban core from which they could establish interior lines of supply and communication, even while facing Royalist uprisings in the countryside combined with the threat of Austrian, and later Prussian and British intervention. They obtained local numerical superiority, which allowed them to overcome Royalist insurgents, concentrating Republican manpower on the small area around roads between cities at first rather than chasing peasant rebels through the woods and fields, while their road, river and canal networks allowed them to leverage mobility advantage over widely spaced enemy forces, combined with strategic production advantage with control over dockyards, lumber mills and mines.
The Confederate States in the American Civil War were, like the French Royalists, rural and far-spaced, with connections of industrially significant scale irregular and confined to specific needs of commercial interests. Cotton-hauling riverboats don’t make good troop transports at sea, and the rail gauges were a mismatched mess. The North didn’t make the same mistakes the British did during the Revolutionary war, trying to chase rebel bands through swamp country. They just stayed in defensible positions until they built up enough troop strength to extend a continuous line across the area they wanted to hold, while developing a good enough mobile arm to force the enemy to waste time chasing them instead. In some ways, Abraham Lincoln’s Free Soil/Republican movement was more like a newly installed revolutionary group than a long-established government. Now in 2024, we get to see if the revolutionary spirit is still to be found in the Republicans, or whether they’ve succumbed to swamp rot.
Mao and Lenin both kept their flanks toward a border that the central government forces of the Chinese and Russian republics, respectively, couldn’t reach. Moammar Gadhafi would have won in Libya if the rebels there didn’t have Benghazi to fall back to after losing the first battle for Tripoli. Right now, Putin’s forces are trying to establish supply lines to the coast and to the Central African Republic from North Sudan. Ethiopia has frequent rebellions because they have many different ethnic groups, each of which have their own region in which to hide. Kurdistan’s revolutions keep failing because, no matter which way they turn, there’s an enemy at their back
For Iran, a newly democratic government would few resources and fewer allies. The Gulf Monarchies don’t want a free and prosperous country that large on their doorstep. It might give their own subjects ideas. China would also work to keep such a government under their control. It’s not like in Ukraine, where protests built up to a certain critical mass, and then the Russian puppet dictator Yanukovich just popped out like a cork from a shaken bottle, fleeing to save his hide. The fact that it took Russia a decade to respond to Euromaidan, and then fumble that response, doesn’t say much for the chances of Putin’s regime, but then the Russians were complacent, confident that Soviet rule had broken the spirit of Ukraine, which it clearly did not do. Yanukovich barely spoke Ukrainian, and made frequent mistakes when speaking the language, feeling much more at home speaking Russian and basically being a Russian, which isn’t a problem in and of itself, but it is if you’re oppressing a country on behalf of a genocidal maniac and makes you stick out like a sore thumb in that country. The mullahs speak Persian, and have nowhere else to go, even though apparently many of them send their kids to live in America despite sanctions and hostilities. They would be more likely to stand their ground and fight to the death in the face of successful revolution, possibly drawing out a civil war, concentrating many if not most of Iranian men of fighting age far from the north, where they would have to be in order to effectively counter a Turkish invasion.
In Iran, if the regime collapsed, many ethnic groups around the periphery would make a break for independence, almost as many as would do so in the event of a Russian collapse, Iranian Azeris among them. The Iranian border guards would have to surrender or flee. Many of those Iranian Azeris would welcome Turkish troops as liberators. The Turks would really only face intense combat on the central plateau. Turkish and Iranian drones would fight for many days in those plains and mountains. Iranian air defense is likely to be even less effective than Russia’s. If an imperialist Turkey manages to get free and clear access to ports on the Indian Ocean, they will try to build up a blue water navy. As it is, their navy faces similar restrictions to what hindered the Ottoman navy, limiting its reach and dividing it between multiple seas with multiple potential opponents in each direction, with the only passage between those seas within reach of several of those potential adversaries. For the near term, Turkey’s naval strategy is heavily reliant upon drone carriers, a ship type as potentially game-changing for naval warfare as aircraft carriers were when they first arrived on the scene. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows modern air defense can effectively shoot down even hypersonic weapons, making, cheap, slower drone swarms a more economical option. Turkey is likely taking notes on what works for each side, what doesn’t, why or why not, and how to do it all better. Mountains such as Iran has make for useful terrain cover for drones, limiting the effective range of Iranian radar and missiles against them. Turkey has taken note from the Ukraine Sunflower War on prioritizing targeting fuel trucks over tanks so that the tanks have limited mobility. They would also keep an eye on Iranian troop movements with drones while screening their own. Among Turkey’s worst casualties would be from Iranian surface-to-surface missiles, but overall, Turkey would likely crush Iran as quickly as Azerbaijan did to Armenia. The Turkish army will have made sure not to leave any forces headed for Tehran strung out in an easily targeted convoy like Russia did outside Kyiv, nor to lose their airborne troops in a bungled helicopter deployment with failed supporting ground troop linkup like Russia did at Hostomel or like Iraq did in Tikrit while fighting ISIS. They will have made careful contingency plans with multiple fallback points mapped out for each leg of the advance, should it become necessary. They may even take advantage of Iranian zeal for a counterattack to lure them into ambush, wipe them out, then keep on going back on the offensive. The Turks would be unlikely to gain complete air superiority at any point during the main fighting, but would hold the advantage, and their ground forces would perform far better than the Russians have done. The Iranians would deploy Basij units in among the IRGC and regular army units, but even IEDs and suicide bombers wouldn’t slow the Turkish army down for long. Iran would try to use at least a few anyway, including Humvees and other American-made vehicles left behind in Iraq after Obama retreated from there. The Iranians would also use such vehicles to stage poorly filmed and unconvincing propaganda videos like the Russians did, claiming to have destroyed more vehicles than the Turkish army even has. By the time it’s over, Iranian generals will have sent back false reports claiming victory even after they have already fled their posts, just like Russian generals did in Ukraine and Iraqi officers did in the First Gulf War.
If Iran’s regime hadn’t already made so many enemies, then there would be some chance that Erdogan might refrain from attacking them, not wanting to stick out as the world’s sole aggressor against another state in modern times, but Putin has already removed that roadblock and stolen the spotlight. As things stand, if he gets the chance, Erdogan would invade Iran if he thought he could succeed and do so without bringing the rest of the world down on his head, whether a democratic regime replaces the mullahs or not. The last turnoff for Iran to avoid that and move towards peace happened five or six years ago.
Thank you, @K, for this!
Yeah, I wasn’t sure what you’d think, and I felt a knot in my stomach after posting, but hey, if it helps, great!
I’d just add one item, that if Western left-leaning media gave equal coverage to Iranian democratic movements as they did to Ukrainian ones, then Iranian reform groups would be more likely to gain similar results. The Kremlin picked Yanukovich to run Ukraine for them because they thought he would be easy to control, not because they thought he would do good for the Ukrainian people. They picked for loyalty, not skills. The mullahs brought some people with expertise into their regime, but the second group don’t call the shots. There is some link between ability and promotions within the IRGC, but even though they are diversifying their assets to control large portions of what would otherwise have been Iran’s civilian economic sectors as has been pointed out in some of Mark’s previous posts, not every one of those sectors they’re taking over is directly war-effort-related enough for the skillsets to translate. This means those sectors will suffer as long as they are controlled by the IRGC, which in those cases becomes no better than some Communist Politburo. The sort of job losses that arrangement creates will hurt Iran’s civilian job market and reduce popular support for the regime even more. Iran will become ever more dependent on China for manufactured goods, so if trade with China is cut, there goes their standard of living. Some Western governments are afraid that if Iran became a free and democratic country, then they wouldn’t have an excuse to keep them under sanctions and would have to start buying Iranian oil again, which is evil in the eyes of the Greens because “Climate Change.” The Left would much rather keep the current regime around as another useful boogeyman to scare their own people into compliance.
Wine is a mocker (Proverbs 20:1). World wine production mocks Islamic advice against wine-drinking. Eight Islamic countries having a Mediterranean coast produce wines: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Turkiye, Albania.
This means that “hurt not the oil and the wine” (Revelation 6:6) can apply to Islamic countries. Daniel Revisited applies Revelation 6:5-6 to a four-nation Sunni confederacy (Daniel 7:6), all four of which produce wine. Of that four, Turkiye produces the most.
Although Jordan has no Mediterranian coast, its wine production opens the possibility that major prophecies concerning the Moab area of Jordan, Isaiah 15-16 and Jeremiah 48, both of which mention wine production (Isaiah 16:10; Jeremiah 48:33), could have second signpost fulfillments. The Iranian ram is to charge westward (Daniel 8:4,20), and Jordan is west of Iran.
On 2023-06-06, Iran Front Page reported that in northern Iran a family of four leopards was captured on a video, shared with readers.
https://ifpnews.com/persian-leopard-iran-northern-mountainous-regions/
What made this newsworthy is that Iran’s leopard population has been on the verge of extinction. But while cheering readers that Iranian leopard extinction may not happen, the four leopards shown in the video could also be an ominous sign that in Iran’s future is coming the four-headed leopard mentioned in Daniel 7:6. Daniel 7 does not indicate any interaction between the bear of verse 5 and the leopard of verse 6, but Daniel 8 has a goat attacking a ram, and the countries represented are revealed in 8:20-21. Once we learn that “Greece” is really Javan, which includes Turkiye, and then see how Daniel Revisited coordinates the Daniel 7 and 8 visions, we know that there will be conflicts between Shia Iran and a Sunni Turkiye aligned with three other Sunni countries. Within Sunni Islam are four acceptable schools of jurisprudence. The Ottoman Empire promoted the Hanafi school, which still prevails in Turkiye, Albania, Egypt, and Syria, the four-headed leopard.
🔥🔥🔥🔥 Beautiful catch, btw. Absolutely crazy.
Erdogan offered to help Putin crush Wagner Group’s Mutiny. Did he help organize it in the first place as a thank-you to Putin for the 2016 Turkish coup attempt?
One of the most useful features of Bible Hub’s displays of Bible verses is its “Interlin” (Interlinear) function, which lines up text, Strong’s word numbers, and English translation. By employing the “Interlin” function on Isaiah 21:2 and Isaiah 33:1, a relationship between those two verses becomes blantantly obvious. The same words used in the same way in both verses requires that English translations use the same English word for corresponding Hebrew words. The Jewish Publication Society’s current translation does this admirably (I have inserted Strong’s numbers in brackets).
Isaiah 21:2:
A harsh prophecy
Has been announced to me:
“The betrayer [898] is betraying [898],
The ravager [7703] is ravaging [7703].
Advance, Elam!
Lay siege, Media!
I have put an end
To all her sighing.
[I think that “her” refers to the “Desert of the Sea” (Arabian Peninsula) in Isaiah 21:1.]
Isaiah 33:1:
Ha, you ravager [7703] who are not ravaged [7703],
You betrayer [898] who have not been betrayed [898]!
When you have done ravaging [7703], you shall be ravaged [7703];
When you have finished betraying [898], you shall be betrayed [898].
[I think that the betrayer and ravager in both verses is the Islamic Republic of Iran.]
The Jewish Study Bible (Second Edition) has this comment about Isaiah 33:1: “The enemy is not identified, perhaps because in Isaiah’s historical context the enemy was obviously Assyria.” That statement would not have been written had the obvious relationship between Isaiah 21:2 and 33:1 been noticed. I think that Isaiah 21:2 describes conditions at the beginning of the second signpost, while Isaiah 33:1 describes conditions at the beginning of the third signpost, in harmony with Daniel 8:5-7 and Jeremiah 49:34-39 concerning the fall of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Prism,
Interesting discovery and it seems to fit. I’ll check it out as I have time.
Reliable information about what is going on in the countries mentioned in Daniel Revisited is available in English. Egypt and Turkey have just restored diplomatic relations.
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2023/07/04/Egypt-Turkey-appoint-ambassadors-to-restore-diplomatic-relations-
In contrast, there is contention between Kuwait and Iran over drilling rights in the Al-Dorra oil and gas field beneath the Persian Gulf.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202307036932
There has been tension between Albania and Iran over Albania’s past decision to give safe haven to an Islamic group that wants to overthrow the Iranian regime. Albania’s government is now warning that if they want to attack the Iranian regime, they will not be allowed to do so from their camp in Albania, which has recently been raided by Albanian authorities.
https://albaniandailynews.com/news/pm-rama-mujahideen-must-leave-albania-if-they-want-to-fight-iran
Although such news is beginning to pick up speed, America’s agenda-driven media is not covering it.
The Shanghai Cooperative Organisation, whose member nations include China, Russia and India, deliberately chose, knowing that Iran is an open enemy of the USA, America’s July 4th as the day they officially welcomed into its membership the Islamic Republic of Iran.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202307046948
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation
Such disrespect for America is not reported on by our globalist media, because those who, through election tampering, shanghaied our 2020 election results, want to destroy America without looking like the villains they are.
Saudi Arabia, which was on the brink of reopening its embassy in Iran, has joined the dispute between Kuwait and Iran over an oil and gas field in the Persian Gulf.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202307057623
Meanwhile, Iran’s recently reopened embassy in Riyadh is probably gathering as much intelligence on Saudi Arabia’s military defenses as possible.
https://www.embassypages.com/iran-embassy-riyadh-saudiarabia
Daniel 7:5 NIV: And there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, Get up and eat your fill of flesh!
I used to think that the three ribs between the teeth of the bear would result from the commandment to get up and eat your fill of flesh. However, the three ribs are already in the bear’s mouth prior to that commandment. Right now there are three islands in the Persian Gulf that Iran siezed in 1971, 8 years before the Islamic Republic of Iran was even established. United Arab Emirates continues to claim that those three islands belong to UAE, not Iran. On 2023-07-10, even though Iran and Russia are allies, Russia surprisingly came out in support of UAE’s claims of ownership.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202307110951
A bear was never a symbol of Russia until Western cartoonists began so portraying it, and eventually a Russian political party began using a bear as its logo. But scripturally, as Daniel Revisited points out, the bear of Daniel 7:5 represents Iran, not Russia. Could anyone snatch three ribs out of the mouth of a hungry bear, especially when that bear is about to be told, “Get up and eat your fill of flesh!”?
As the time for the second signpost approaches, the Iranian regime’s official positions and policies are being trumpeted by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), which is published in 11 languages including English.
https: //en.irna.ir/ [Moderator note: To prevent unnecessary targeting by the Regime of this website, when using the preceding URL, paste the URL into your URL window, and remove space following colon.]
By comparing the English version with the Persian version (using the translate feature), it is obvious that the English version covers only what the regime wants English-speaking people to know. While other Iranian news sites are useful, “the positions of officials and official policies of the country are directed to the Islamic Republic News Agency.”
On 2023-08-02 at 9:07 AM Tehran time, IRNA published a short article titled “Iran’s IRGC naval wargame kicks off in the Persian Gulf.”
https: //en.irna.ir/news/85187331/Iran-s-IRGC-naval-wargame-kicks-off-in-Persian-Gulf [Moderator note: To prevent unnecessary targeting by the Regime of this website, when using the preceding URL, paste the URL into your URL window, and remove space following colon.]
Until recently, IRNA named the authors of its articles. Now we are only shown a number for the author, in this case, 1006. Since the main site of the wargame is Abu Musa, one of three islands seized by Iran in 1971, the article has a Abu Musa tag, which calls up an article titled “Abu Musa is part of Iran’s identity, history and national power: Official,” which was also written by journalist 1006. The Iranian regime is maintaining very tight control over its IRNA reporting.
I have noticed that when the English version of Al Arabiya reports on what Iran is doing, it often refers to what is published by IRNA. On 2023-08-02, soon after the IRNA article on the subject, Al Arabiya published an article titled “Iran holds naval drills around disputed Arabian Gulf islands claimed by UAE.”
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/gulf/2023/08/02/Iran-holds-naval-drills-around-disputed-Arabian-Gulf-islands-claimed-by-UAE
Although both the IRNA and Al Arabiya articles are short, they reveal more facts than any coverage by the American media. Does the American media tell us that America’s military is increasing its presence in the Persian Gulf? From the signpost perspective, such could end up being a decision far worse than America’s internationally tragic and embarrassing military exit from Afghanistan, which left thousands of US citizen stranded under the Taliban’s version of sharia law. All Iran has to do is sink some America warships and then say, we have targeted the aircraft carrier you have sent, and unless you immediately withdrawal all forces from the region, our missiles will destroy your carrier along with its 5000 person crew on board.
Daniel 8:4 NIV:
“I watched the ram as it charged toward the west and the north and the south. No animal could stand against it, and none could rescue from its power. It did as it pleased and became great.”
I think we all agree that “none could rescue from its power” means that the USA military will be unable to stop Iran’s invasion of the Middle East. Why that will be the case is where we have differences of opinion. New information about Iran’s missile capabilities suggests that a means for making USA aircraft carriers ineffective now exists.
“Iran’s allegedly AI-guided ‘Abu Mahdi’ cruise missile is officially live”
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/iran-ai-guided-cruise-missile
“According to the commander of the IRGC Navy, Rear Admiral Ali Reza Tangsiri, the new long-range naval cruise missile will make the enemy’s aircraft carriers ineffective by mandating that they stay at least 1,243 miles (2,000 km) away from the country’s shores. During the event, Rear Admiral Tangsiri emphasized that the new missile’s primary objective was to prevent the enemy from approaching the Iranian coast.”
AI-guided Abu Mahdi missiles may be a key to enabling an invasion whose purpose would be to prepare the way for Islam’s Mahdi (Christianity’s Antichrist).
“USS Gerald R. Ford Aircraft Carrier Pulls into Athens”
https://greekreporter.com/2023/07/28/uss-gerald-r-ford-aircraft-carrier-athens/
Although beyond the range of Abu Mahdi missiles, even Athens is now within the range of other Iranian missiles. This map was published by UAE on 2023-08-02, the same day Iran began conducting a wargame on Abu Musa, an island claimed by UAE, that Iran has occupied since 1971.