A watershed moment seems to have been crossed and those who were once close allies of America are close allies no more. Alliances that have lasted decades are now in tatters. There has been an almost complete breakdown in trust and now some “friendly” governments are openly questioning the judgment and integrity of the current U.S. administration and its president.
Usually, in international affairs squabbles and slights are kept very much behind closed doors. Recently, these slights have become embarrassingly public, specifically carried out to relay a message to the President of the United States.
Slights that have been made so public and carried out in terms of their timing with such precision, that one can only conclude the objective behind them is to demonstrate clear distrust and naked contempt for the current U.S. administration, and especially its failed leadership in the Middle East arena.
These once allies want the world to know not just that they disagree with the United States government, they want the world to know how much the current government disgusts them and they seem to want it to be known very publically.
Take, for example, President Obama’s recent two day summit with Gulf allies. This summit was meant to allay fears in the region that Obama is too focused on achieving an Iranian nuclear deal at all costs. It was intended to demonstrate that the United States still has the security needs of its more traditional allies in the Gulf at the forefront of its mind. It was designed to demonstrate that Obama still “has their backs.” The summit was to stop these once stalwart allies in the Gulf from “…wandering any further from America’s orbit.”
Due to attend the summit were Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Oman. These countries form the backbone of American influence in the Gulf and Middle East region. Only two of these nations sent high level delegations to the meeting, Qatar and Kuwait. Bahrain, the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia did not even bother to attend at any meaningful level and sent very junior representatives instead, so contemptuous are they of Obama’s current Middle East strategy.
Indeed, the King of Saudi Arabia, King Salman, evidently holds Obama in such disregard that He allowed the White House to announce his attendance at the summit publically, before snubbing them by informing the White House, after the public announcement, that he would in fact not be in attendance due to “internal issues.”
This was an act clearly designed to publically humiliate the U.S. president and relay the utter breakdown in trust that he now feels in Obama’s judgment and his leadership; the King of Saudi Arabia no longer cares what the U.S. president has to say on the matter.
King Salman’s judgment not to attend seemed to be a sound one when the outcomes of the summit were revealed. Those nations in attendance were after one thing only; a concrete guarantee that the United States would come to their aid if they were attacked by Iran. No such assurances were received. In fact, when pressed on the matter Obama responded by saying that such an assurance would, “…face resistance on Capitol Hill.”
Therefore his hands were effectively tied. Qatar and Kuwait left America publically confused about a summit designed to allay their fears. Like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Oman already know, if it is a choice between a nuclear deal with Iran and upholding traditional loyalties, these friends are on their own.
This attitude of the U.S. has led to a Middle East where countries like Saudi Arabia are now much more inclined to take matters into their own hands. Little known publically is that the Saudi’s actually bankrolled the Pakistani nuclear program in the 1990s, a program under the once guidance of now international nuclear arms proliferator and infamous pariah, A. Q. Khan.
The reason Saudi Arabia funded the Pakistani nuclear bomb was for this exact eventuality. It was so that if the traditional security they enjoyed through their relationship with America ended, then they could simply buy nuclear weapons from Pakistan, off the shelf so to speak. This is exactly what is now happening.
The Saudi’s feel abandoned by an America whose entire Middle East policy is Iran centric, and they have as a consequence lost all faith in the United States and its President. They have therefore activated this clause and requested off the shelf, pre-made and assembled nuclear weapons from Pakistan.
At the same time the Saudi’s are allowing Chinese oil firms highly lucrative oil contracts in Saudi Arabia at knock down prices. In return, the Chinese are building missile silos and providing the technology Saudi Arabia needs to deliver a nuclear payload to an enemy target.
In other words, Pakistan provides the bomb, the Chinese provide the means to deliver it. This, by definition is a nuclear arms race between Saudi Arabia and Iran and it looks like both will acquire nuclear power status at roughly the same time. It is mind boggling that the United States is actually the primary backer of the Iranian regimes quest to acquire nuclear threshold status against the obvious security implications for their traditional Gulf allies.
It is mind boggling that the country most to blame for promoting and allowing a nuclear arms race to develop in the first place, is the administration of President Barack Obama.
A spokesman for Saudi Arabia puts it bluntly, “There is a determination among us now that if there are security issues, we have to take action and we will…We don’t have to ask America’s permission…”
The growing conflict in the Yemen can be seen in this light. Saudi Arabia, in alliance with Egypt are acting proactively in Yemen, directly against the elements backed by Iran. It is a proxy war. Just as the US confronted the Soviet Union indirectly through Vietnam, so the Saudi’s are now indirectly fighting Iran in Yemen, and increasingly in places like Syria. It is a proxy war where both sides will soon have nuclear weapons to bring to bear, if needed.
This loss of faith is not confined only to the Gulf States. American influence in Egypt has waned significantly since General Al-Sissi came to power, with Egypt openly questioning whether Obama knows that they are on the same side.” Jordan’s King Hussein, a former special forces soldier, who is at the front and centre of the fight against ISIS openly despairs of the current administration’s policies and its obvious impotence. And we all know exactly where Obama stands in regard to little Israel. There is no trust whatsoever between Obama and Netanyahu.
America has lost control of their policy in the Middle East and the entire region is slipping away from them. There is a huge power vacuum there.. Into that power and leadership vacuum has rushed Iran and its closest ally, Russia, and they are attempting to dominate the vast swathes of land originally cleared by the pillaging and slaughter of ISIS.
ISIS now conservatively holds land estimated to be around 35 thousand square miles, controlling the lives of over 8 million people, with relatively just a handful of rag tag soldiers. That’s a land mass bigger than Great Britain and it leads from the borders of Iran through Iraq and Syria right up to Israel’s front door.
The Bible speaks clearly about these last days in the Middle East. It talks of a great horde descending through this cleared section of the Middle East upon a small nation, a nation standing all alone against an overwhelming enemy, intent on its complete destruction. Israel is that nation and it is now effectively standing alone.
Obama’s America is actively abandoning Israel, cutting Israel lose to navigate the stormy waters of the Middle East without help or support. This is common knowledge reflected time and again in a multitude of mainstream sources.
ISIS and Obama are pawns in God’s hands, preparing the way for Gog’s attack on Israel and Gog’s shadow is starting to hang deeply over the Middle Eastern horizon. Russia’s influence is deep and is growing day by day, in Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria, binding them together. Although the war of Gog and Magog has not yet begun, we can almost hear it in the distance, rumbling forward, approaching yet unseen.
The battle of Gog and Magog is one of those rarest of moments in earth’s long history where a change is clearly marked. A change of times and seasons, a change in dispensations. The battle of Gog and Magog is the point at which God clearly and without reservation begins openly dealing again with the Jewish people. It is when He begins to turn His face once more to His very own ancient inheritance and begins the work of turning their hard hearts back to Him, culminating in the refining that they will have to undergo during the Tribulation,
“This third I will put into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God” (Zechariah 13:9).
Ultimately, “…all Israel will be saved…” (Romans 11:26), but only after they have been gone, “…through the fire” (Zechariah 13:9).
With the approach of Gog and the war he will bring, comes also the change in biblical dispensations and the closing of this Church Age. The rapture of the Church, if Gog’s shadow rests over the brow of the horizon, must therefore be close at hand.
Whether it be this year, next, in five or even ten years, only God Himself knows. It is time though to put our relationship with God first. It is time to ensure all our hopes for the future are based on Jesus alone, “The stone the builders rejected” (Psalm 118:22a).
It is time to recommit ourselves to God’s plans for our lives, it is time put right the wrongs that we can, whilst there is still time to do it. It is time to stop playing Christian and start being an empowered son or daughter of the Most High God, an overcomer who is seated with Jesus, “…in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 2:6)
It is time to live what we believe and be who we know we are in Jesus.
“And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed ” (Romans 13:11).