June 8, 2009
Defeat in Advance
President Barack Obama has finally given his long-awaited speech to the Islamic world. The address in Cairo, Egypt, broke no new ground, but it confirmed that a sea change in American foreign policy has taken place. Obama’s speech was all about "a new beginning" and "mutual respect" between the United States and the Islamic world.
The Israel-centric Middle East policy of George W. Bush is dead. The plan is now for America to now deal on an equal footing with all parties in the Middle East.
I am totally certain that this is new approach will likely result in a huge disaster. His speech basically was a declaration of defeat in advance of events yet to come.
Our dear President gave a major gesture of conciliation to Iran when he admitted U.S. involvement in the 1953 coup that overthrew the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. "In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government," said Obama.
Obama then said Iran may have some right to nuclear energy. He said that any nation, including Iran, "should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."
Another major step by the President was to acknowledge that Hamas has a valid claim to being the ruling party in the Gaza Strip. He said, "To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel's right to exist."
Obama also pushed for the two-state solution. The President called on Israel and the Palestinians to revive stalled peace talks, demanding that Palestinians halt violence and Israelis ease the plight of those in the occupied territories. "Too many tears have been shed. Too much blood has been shed," he said.
There are two key reasons why I see calamity coming. The first one is that you cannot win by kissing up to the Muslim world. There is not a single Arab nation in the Middle East that one can point to as a model nation. Egypt, where Obama gave his speech, is not a democracy, and the West probably hopes it stays that way. If there ever were free and open elections, the likely outcome would be a radical Islamist victory.
I don’t see any benefit in trying to butter up Iran. That nation’s leaders are racing to build a nuclear bomb. Just this week, we learned that Iran now has five thousand high-speed centrifuges, with two thousand ready to go online in the production of enriched uranium. It would be insane for anyone in the West to think that if we fawn over Iran, they will pull the plug on their centrifuges. What Obama should be doing is asking Israel if it needs any more laser-guided bombs.
It is pointless to reach out to Hamas. This organization only has one agenda: the extinction of Israel. It’s been sixteen years since the Oslo Accords turned the West Bank and Gaza over to the Palestinians. The number of roads, bridges, courthouses, and hospitals built during the time has been zip. The billions given to the Palestinian leadership have either been spent on weapons or deposited into Swiss bank accounts.
The two-state solution is doomed to failure. Every concession will lead to the need for further peace talks. The Arabs’ goal is to capture all of Israel. That's why Haj Amin al-Husseini, the acting Arab power in Palestine, chose war rather than a two-state solution in 1947, why Yasser Arafat turned down a Palestinian state in 2000, and why Abbas rejected Olmert's even more generous December 2008 offer. They don’t want part of the land occupied by the Jews; they want it all.
The second reason Obama’s hopes for peace will fail is that the Bible says it will never work. Eventually, Jerusalem will become the main sticking point of the “peace process” and the struggle over this city will lead to a series of global conflicts.
One of the strongest indications that we are very near to the tribulation hour is how easy it has become to predict the actions of world leaders. Since the day Obama stepped into office, he has done everything I thought he would do. If he does what I fear will come next–a major break with Israel–the world could soon see Bible prophecy begin to rapidly unfold.
-- Todd
North Korea and the Kings of the East
I must be up front and say that I feel somewhat guilty writing on the building North Korean nuclear threat. Compared to other things popping to the news front almost hourly, this tin-horn dictatorship and its doings somewhat fade in the glow of prophetic potentiality on today’s geopolitical horizon.
President Obama’s trip to Egypt to, in effect, call America the guilty party for causing all of the Middle East hatreds and turmoil, and his absolute insult to Israel by refusing to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his nation were fraught enough with prophetic portent. But, Obama’s declaration that there will be peace and security only when Israel’s land is divided and the Palestinians are given a state as part of that divided land, with part of Jerusalem its capital, is nothing short of staggering when considering the stage-setting for the coming time of God’s wrath.
There is so much surrounding the stunning swiftness of this president’s moves to remake this nation and the world into something very much like the end-times world foretold by Jesus and the Old and New Testament prophets that examining any other issues and events seems merely anecdotal or afterthought.
However, the North Korean factor does, I’m convinced, fit into the end-times Bible prophecy puzzle. Therefore, I’ve determined the matters involved to be of enough significance to present some thoughts in this forum, as I had started out to do before the Obama speech in Cairo. It is key to understanding the possibilities of how the countries of Asia might one day fulfill the “kings of the east” prophecies to look at how the giant dragon nation holds sway.
I’ve always found it fascinating that China in modern times–one of the most diabolically repressive regimes ever to exist—has the dragon as its national symbol. That reptilian beast, in my view, fits because of the influence that old serpent—the dragon, Satan—has observably wielded over that land since the time of Mao Tse-tung. Mao and the so-called Peoples Revolution had perhaps as many as sixty million Chinese people murdered. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il , although more crude than Mao, is of the same dragon mind-set. He continues to press forward with nuclear weapons testing and with a ballistic missile testing program designed to intimidate his Asian neighbors, particularly South Korea and Japan.
His threats, we are led to believe, are as much a concern to china and Russia as to North Korea’s immediate neighbors. They seem to be all for putting the handcuffs on the Mao wannabe. But, when it comes down to putting the diplomatic hammer down on the North Korean tyrant, China, along with Russia, becomes wishy-washy.
Sanctions work against the North Korean regime, it has been proven, only if they are of the severe economic sort. Only when those government officials of North Korea who deal with international buying and selling are literally forced to carry cash around with them because they are sanctioned in the process of acquiring loans through credit do they ever make concessions.
The international community, demanding nuclear non-proliferation, then, not surprisingly is calling for severe sanctions in order to pressure Kim Jong-il into giving up nuclear weapons development. The United States, for example, is at the forefront of imposing sanctions of the kind that has in the past gotten results from such pressures on North Korea’s leadership.
SEOUL, South Korea—The United States has told South Korea it will impose its own financial sanctions on the North apart from punishments that the UN has been mulling for Pyongyang's latest nuclear test, a news report said Friday.
The U.S. sanctions call for blacklisting foreign financial institutions that help the North launder money and conduct other dubious deals, the South Korean Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported… (“U.S. to reportedly go for own sanctions on N. Korea,” Associated Press, 6/5/09).
However, there is in these troubling days a major problem with America or anyone else squaring off with the North Koreans with regard to such stringent sanctions:
Many analysts have said that economic sanctions against the isolated North won't be effective unless China actively implements them. Pyongyang relies heavily On China for food and energy aid and imports. More than 70 percent of the North's total trade is with China… (ibid.).
China, like Russia, wanting to give appearances of being on board with holding a tight rein on Kim Jong-il, has indicated it would join in the sanctions. But now, when it becomes imperative to take such action because of Kim Jong-il’s going full steam ahead with a barrage of missile launches, an underground nuclear test that violated previous UN Security Council sanctions, and apparent plans for more missile tests (including one believed to be capable of reaching the U.S.), China along with Russia uses delaying tactics at every opportunity.
UNITED NATIONS—North Korea's allies China and Russia raised questions Tuesday about some possible new sanctions against North Korea for its recent nuclear test, delaying Security Council action sought by key Western powers, U.N. diplomats said.
But, getting a resolution out quickly is less important than getting one that has teeth, they said…(“China, Russia Delay United Nations Action on Sanctions Against North Korea Over Nuclear Test,” www.FOXNews.com, 6/4/09).
It is all quite troubling, but prophetic in implication. North Korea, at this point, appears to be a pawn used in the Sino-Russian mix of positioning for power in a world in process of stupefying changes. America’s new president continues to be a chief–perhaps the chief—instigator of those changes. Just as Russia looks to be the Gog nation of the Gog-Magog war of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39, China will likely be the king of the kings of the East nations.
And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.
And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them (Revelation 9:13-16).
And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared” (Revelation 16:12).
--Terry
