President Trump ordering the takeout of Iran’s top military strategist rocked the world Thursday January 2, 2020. The target, Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, the division of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was responsible for militant and terrorist activities outside the country.
Reports say a drone strike obliterated two SUVs as they drove from the Baghdad International Airport. The man considered to be the most powerful and influential regime leader, second only to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a reported seven other ranking officials in Iran’s terrorist organizational structure, were killed.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Fox and Friends Friday morning that Soleimani was Khamenei’s “right fist.” He was all things military and terroristic rolled up into one, Pompeo said. “He was a bad guy.”
US Senator Lindsey Graham said on the same program that Americans should understand that Soleimani wasn’t killed because of past offenses, although many Americans were killed as a result of his terroristic planning over the years. He was taken out because of plans for future acts of murderous terrorism in Iraq and around the world. The intelligence indicated many such terrorist acts were being arranged by the Iranian master planner.
It is thought by some that Israeli Defense Force (IDF) planners were key in helping Soleimani’s assassination. For this reason, Israel is on high alert for what the Iranians are doubtless preparing in retaliation. Regardless of Israel’s involvement or lack thereof, the Jewish state is being blamed for the matter alongside the United States. Flags of both nations are being burned throughout Iran and other Middle Eastern countries sympathetic to Iranian militancy.
Democrats and mainstream media are faulting President Trump for the action, which they claim is bringing on a devastating war in the region. Fears of what taking out the key Iranian terrorist might cause are summarized in the following excerpt.
Though the U.S. intelligence community has not assessed that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program, there are long-standing reports that it may have stockpiles of chemical weapons, which it could load onto these weapons.…
Non-kinetic alternatives, such as cyber attacks, could be another part of the equation.
If Iran were to pursue any of those options, it would almost certainly beget at least similar responses, though the United States has now shown a willingness to take increasingly disproportionate steps in its ostensible goal of deterring Iran. Major escalatory actions from either side also increasingly run the risk of drawing in other regional or even global actors who have a stake in the situation, such as Russia or China, in some way. There is also the danger that third parties could find themselves caught in the crossfire from future tit-for-tat military or terrorist attacks.
Iran also routinely threatens to blockade the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which it could do using a combination of ballistic and anti-ship cruise missiles, midget submarines, suicide drones, mines, swarming boat attacks, and more. This body of water links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and that serves as a transshipment point for 20 percent of the world’s oil and an equally significant portion of global natural gas. (Joseph Trevithick, “World Holds Its Breath after An American Strike in Iraq Kills Top Iranian Commander,” https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31702/world-holds-its-breath-after-an-american-)
From the standpoint of prophetic perspective, one has only to know of the Iranian regime’s desire to keep things stirred in the Middle East. The Ayatollah is always focused on hatred for and revenge against Israel. America, as Israel’s close ally and umbrella protector, is considered an even greater enemy because it holds the ultimate power to oppose the destruction the Iranian leadership wants to wreak upon all enemies.
The question to consider involves whether this action–killing the chief terror-master in Iran and perhaps the entire world–will cause Iran to push its vengeance to the brink. The brink in this case is an all-out attack on Israel, or American forces that remain in that theatre of possible war.
Mr. Trump, bold as always with his assessments, said that Iran hasn’t won a war or lost a negotiation. By that, I take it that the president supposes that negotiations at this point are not in view and that they would lose a war should it start.
That is almost surely true. As powerful a force as Iran is in comparison to others of the region, it would be no match for the massive force the United States could bring down upon the regime. And, this is considering only the use of the most basic of modern, military weaponry, excluding that of the nuclear sort.
War with Israel, on the other hand, would be much more horrific if an all-out attack came from Iran. All bets would be off as to whether the ultimate weapons in Israel’s arsenal would be used if pushed to that brink.
The one prospect that probes and pulses at the back of the mind is this: Will Iran’s vengeful actions—which are certainly coming—be the catalyst for destruction of its nuclear laboratories? Is the strike that has so profoundly shaken the world at the very first of this New Year the act that will bring fulfillment of the prophecies of Jeremiah 49:34–39?
In my Nearing Midnight commentary of December 9, 2019, I wrote the following in summation of my article, “Gog’s Persian Prophecy Partner”:
A major part of all this that might be of interest to prophecy watchers, in my thinking, is whether the current and building resistance to the Muslim rulers of Iran will bring stepped up activity in fulfilling their nuclear ambitions… They will almost certainly not step up dismantling that program. Becoming a nuclear power, thus a hegemonic regional force, is, I believe, a supernaturally induced desire, placed there by the Prince of Persia, or that minion’s superior, Lucifer, himself.
If the ayatollahs determine their own positions are threatened, might they go all out to complete getting the ultimate weaponry that they think will assure their continuing rulership?
It has long been my contention that something prevents the Gog-Magog force from storming toward Israel using nuclear weapons. At least, that’s the way I read the Gog-Magog forces in regard to their weaponry.
It seems there are no nukes involved—at least, none used by these evil attackers. The Lord, Himself, seems to use something at least as horrific as nuclear weaponry in dealing with those attackers, but their forces seem to be conventional.
As President Trump often says: “Let’s see what happens.”