When the Dust Settles in Syria - By Fiamma Nirenstein - https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=3542
To speak about Kurds has suddenly become a cry in favor of human rights and self-determination by the Western press, and rightly so: The assault they are suffering is lethal and may become genocidal.
More frightening is that it is being perpetrated by the Turks, who are already stained by the Armenian genocide and led by a leader who considers himself an almighty sultan. And it's really odd that Europe is only now discovering who he really is.
How can this be? Didn't Europe know that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during these last 16 years in power has been possessed by a vicious fundamentalist Islamic and imperialist dream, repeatedly displayed unprecedented arrogance (he has closed newspapers and thrown more than 150,000 dissidents in prison), and expressed extreme ideas that have systematically dismantled the precious Kemalist heritage that once made Turkey the hope of a bridge between the Islamic world and the West?
Didn't Europe see that he inundated the world with slogans and antisemitic standpoints corroborated by his friendship with Hamas? That he supported former Egypt President Mohammad Morsi as leader of the Muslim Brotherhood -- a man he praised being himself the greatest Muslim Brotherhood politician in office?
Is it coincidence that Erdoğan allowed the passage from his country of thousands of Islamic fundamentalists in possession of whatever passport to boost ISIS, which many claim he supported through trade and furnished with weapons?
His hatred of the Kurds, identifying them all with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), is one of the signs of the dangerous character of the man who hasn't hesitated -- and won't hesitate again now -- to threaten Europe with opening Turkey's borders and flooding Europe with millions of refugees.
The Kurds are a divided population, disillusioned and sometimes even struggling with each other, often split by multiple geographical and political divisions (Abdullah Ocalan was certainly a leader, but also a Communist and a terrorist). Still, they are also a persecuted, courageous, and special population with respect to their yearning to aim for equality between the sexes and to practice it as much as they can.
Moreover, the Kurds are in favor of democracy and a positive relationship with the West and also Israel, whose citizens in these days -- in opposition with US President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of Syria and abandon its Kurdish allies -- are demonstrating in their favor on the streets. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also lent words of support to the Kurds.
What is happening is that the media now assigns Erdoğan an omnipotence that he doesn't have and a long-term outlook he lacks, demonstrated by the fact that within his own country, he no longer enjoys half of the support he once did in the past. Erdoğan has embarked on a path full of unexpected, dangerous events. How will the Turks now see his use of the army and Arab extremist militias against a civilian population far from Ankara?
And how will its population, which is already in financial difficulty, react to additional American sanctions that already affect the defense and energy sectors, as well as the rise in tariffs, including European ones that will now be determined? And it will be Turkey's fault if the bloodthirsty zombies of ISIS are again unleashed by the thousands because of the confusion caused by this war.
In chorus, the international media argue that Trump's withdrawal marks a total radical strategic change in the structure of power and American influence in the region, and that those who will gain are first and foremost Russia, Iran and Syrian President Bashar Assad. But we must remember that the Alawite power, since its beginning, has always leaned on Russia to dominate the country.
In fact, this duo is nothing new. And that the Turks and Assad have a relationship of continuous clash-rapprochement is equally well-known: for now, instead, the fact that Assad has established a relationship with the Kurds means that the Russians tend towards the status quo without Turkish domination.
As for Iran, the non-fortuitous coincidence of the beginning of Turkish hostilities with a powerful exercise along the same border by the Iranian army tells us that Tehran shows up to signal that it doesn't like the excess of a Sunni presence in northeast Syria, and this contrasts not just a little with the photo diffused everywhere during the summit between Erdoğan, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which took place this past September in Ankara.
At this moment, the trio no longer works together, and Russia will be the "tightrope walker" between the Sunni and Shi'ite powers that seemed momentarily calmed.
The United States has -- and not just with Trump, as demonstrated by former President Barack Obama's approach vis-� -vis Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the famous failure to enforce the "red line" against Assad -- left the Middle East numerous times under several American presidents.
But then it, as Politico notes, returned for better or worse: Jimmy Carter with the battles at the Iranian embassy, Ronald Reagan with the explosion of the barracks and the massacre of soldiers at the hands of the Hezbollah in Beirut; and George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks with the invasion of Afghanistan and later Iraq.
Now the field correspondents write that a mass of Arab militias armed by the Turks commit atrocities on the Kurdish population with the cry of "Allahu Akbar," against kafirs (infidels). This outbreak of Islamic fundamentalism can have great repercussions that certainly won't leave anyone indifferent, including Trump. We will see.
And for Israel, which certainly cannot afford to move armed troops considering all the problems it currently faces on its borders, we can still bet on the fact that its standing on the side of the Kurds will mean something.
It's not the fact that America no longer wants to stay on that border that has changed things, but the war cry of Islamic fundamentalism that resounds again and again the Middle East. Perhaps Erdoğan, with Sunni and regal pride, lacks a complete vision of what he has unleashed.
Iran certainly doesn't like this Sunni invasion and neither do the Alawis. Russia is in the middle. America is far away, but vigilant. And Europe, as usual, is absent.
How Turkey is storming the gates of prophecy - Bill Wilson - www.dailyjot.com
The region of modern Turkey plays an integral role in end-time prophecy and during this decade it has been relentlessly pursuing it. Turkey long has sought a "buffer zone" with Syria (the area that is occupied by the Kurds) and has aided ISIS in overthrowing the Assad government. In October 2014, the UK Independent pointed out the complex support of Turkey for ISIS, while claiming to be an ally of the US. In September 2015, it was reported that Turkey was supporting ISIS. In May 2016 reports surfaced that Turkey had been aiding and abetting ISIS through many actions from battlefield medical care to turning a blind eye to ISIS training and fundraising activities in Turkey. Now, this support is even further confirmed.
On Sunday, Turkish journalist Can Dundar, who was arrested by the Turkish government in 2015 and sentenced to 20 years because he claimed Turkey was covertly supplying weapons to ISIS, told Kurdistan 24 news while in Washington, DC, that Turkey has used ISIS as an instrument of policy in Syria, and is currently allied with Syrian militia groups that are not easy to distinguish from the ISIS militants themselves. Dundar claimed that Turkey was freeing ISIS terrorists and giving them sanctuary in Turkey. According to Breitbart News, Kurdistan 24 confirmed Dundar's claim by interviewing "female ISIS suspects" in one of the camps menaced by the Turks, who said their husbands and others had fled to Turkey for safe haven.
On July 31, 2017, The Daily Jot reported that Turkey was challenging Iran's control of Iraq and Syria through ISIS and pressure from its allies, including the US and European Union. As you can see, Turkey has been seeking the kind of "green light" to advance on the Syrian buffer zone since the advent of ISIS earlier in this decade. Turkey has been clandestinely supporting ISIS, despite paying lip service to the contrary. Meantime the Kurds, occupying the buffer zone Turkey seeks, have been fighting ISIS. Now, Turkey is emboldened to drive the Kurds out of the Northern border with Syria, or kill them all, which benefits the ISIS terrorists. President Trump's actions aside, these events appear to be relentlessly prophetic.
Gabriel's interpretation of Daniel's vision of "what shall be in the last end" and "for at the time appointed the end shall be" (Daniel 8:19) is clearly an end-time prophecy, which, therefore, could not have been completely fulfilled by Alexander the Great and his generals as is widely taught. These events are yet to occur for the little horn (antichrist) to rise to power. Currently, Iran has control over much of Iraq and Syria. For Ezekiel 38 and Daniel 8 to be fulfilled, Iran must come into alignment by submitting to Turkey's leadership against Israel. Turkey is positioning for its end time role, as these recent events demonstrate. Turkey has stormed the gates of prophecy, bending the will and confounding the wisdom of many nations.
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Is Putin the New King of the Middle East? - By Patrick J. Buchanan - https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/patrick-j-buchanan/putin-new-king-middle-east
"Russia Assumes Mantle of Supreme Power Broker in the Middle East," proclaimed Britain's Telegraph.
The article began: "Russia's status as the undisputed power-broker in the Middle East was cemented as Vladimir Putin continued a triumphant tour of capitals traditionally allied to the US."
"Donald Trump Has Handed Putin the Middle East on a Plate" was the title of a Telegraph column. "Putin Seizes on Trump's Syria Retreat to Cement Middle East Role," said the Financial Times.
The U.S. press parroted the British: Putin is now the new master of the Mideast. And woe is us.
Before concluding that Trump's pullout of the last 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria is America's Dunkirk, some reflection is needed.
Yes, Putin has played his hand skillfully. Diplomatically, as the Brits say, the Russian president is "punching above his weight."
He gets on with everyone. He is welcomed in Iran by the Ayatollah, meets regularly with Bibi Netanyahu, is a cherished ally of Syria's Bashar Assad, and this week was being hosted by the King of Saudi Arabia and the royal rulers of the UAE. October 2019 has been a triumphal month.
Yet, consider what Putin has inherited and what his capabilities are for playing power broker of the Middle East.
He has a single naval base on the Med, Tartus, in Syria, which dates to the 1970s, and a new air base, Khmeimim, also in Syria.
The U.S. has seven NATO allies on the Med - Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Albania, Greece and Turkey, and two on the Black Sea, Romania and Bulgaria. We have U.S. forces and bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Djibouti. Russia has no such panoply of bases in the Middle East or Persian Gulf.
We have the world's largest economy. Russia's economy is smaller than Italy's, and not a tenth the size of ours.
And now that we are out of Syria's civil war and the Kurds have cut their deal with Damascus, consider what we have just dumped into Vladimir Putin's lap. He is now the man in the middle between Turkey and Syria.
He must bring together dictators who detest each other. There is first President Erdogan, who is demanding a 20-mile deep strip of Syrian borderland to keep the Syrian Kurds from uniting with the Turkish Kurds of the PKK. Erdogan wants the corridor to extend 280 miles, from Manbij, east of the Euphrates, all across Syria, to Iraq.
Then there is Bashar Assad, victorious in his horrific eight-year civil war, who is unlikely to cede 5,000 square miles of Syrian territory to a permanent occupation by Turkish troops.
Reconciling these seemingly irreconcilable Syrian and Turkish demands is now Putin's problem. If he can work this out, he ought to get the Nobel Prize.
"Putin is the New King of Syria," ran the op-ed headline in Thursday's Wall Street Journal.
The Syria of which Putin is now supposedly king contains Hezbollah, al-Qaida, ISIS, Iranians, Kurds, Turks on its northern border and Israelis on its Golan Heights. Five hundred thousand Syrians are dead from the civil war. Half the pre-war population has been uprooted, and millions are in exile in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe.
If Putin wants to be king of this, and it is OK with Assad, how does that imperil the United States of America, 6,000 miles away?
Wednesday, two-thirds of the House Republicans joined Nancy Pelosi's Democrats to denounce Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and dissolve our alliance with the Kurds. And Republican rage over the sudden abandonment of the Kurds is understandable.
But how long does the GOP believe we should keep troops in Syria and control the northeastern quadrant of that country? If the Syrian army sought to push us out, under what authority would we wage war against a Syrian army inside Syria?
And if the Turks are determined to secure their border, should we wage war on that NATO ally to stop them? Would U.S. planes fly out of Turkey's Incirlik air base to attack Turkish soldiers fighting in Syria?
If Congress believes we have interests in Syria so vital we should be willing to go to war for them - against Syria, Turkey, Russia or Iran - why does Congress not declare those interests and authorize war to secure them?
Our foreign policy elites have used Trump's decision to bash him and parade their Churchillian credentials. But those same elites appear to lack the confidence to rally the nation to vote for a war to defend what they contend are vital American interests and defining American values.
If Putin is king of Syria, it is because he was willing to pay the price in blood and treasure to keep his Russia's toehold on the Med and save his ally Bashar Assad, who would have gone under without him.
Who dares, wins. Now let's see how Putin likes his prize.
Erdogan's Summit with Putin Should Ring Alarm Bells for NATO - by Con Coughlin -
With Turkey seemingly intent on forging an ever-closer relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the time has come to give serious consideration to Ankara's continued membership of the NATO alliance.
When the Turks first became members of NATO back in 1952, it was because their country was seen as a vital bulwark against the Soviet Union. Having Turkey in NATO meant it was easier to monitor the activities of the Soviet Black Sea fleet, and limited Moscow's ability to spread its tentacles into eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Now, thanks to the increasingly anti-Western conduct of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, none of these considerations remains relevant.
These days, the Soviet Union might be no more, but Russia under Mr Putin's autocratic rule is just as determined to undermine the West and its allies, and Mr Erdogan, to judge by his successful summit with the Russian leader on October 22 at the Black Sea city of Sochi, is proving to be Moscow's useful idiot in accomplishing these goals.
Relations between Ankara and Moscow have improved considerably since Turkish warplanes shot down a Russian military jet that had strayed into Turkish air space in 2015.
Thanks to the close rapport that exists between Mr Putin and Mr Erdogan, Russia's Black Sea fleet is able to operate freely, to the extent that Russian warships based in the area were used to attack rebel forces in Syria fighting the regime of President Bashir al-Assad.
Now, following the success of the Sochi talks, the two countries have agreed to work together on the post-conflict carve-up of Syria, one that is designed to bolster the interests of both Russia and Turkey at the expense of the Syrian Kurds who were, until recently, regarded as vital allies of the US and other NATO member states in the fight against ISIS.
This means that Mr Erdogan can persist with his offensive against the Syrian Kurds, who commanded the pro-western Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the battle to destroy ISIS, as he seeks to establish what he calls a "safe zone" in northern Syria which, to judge by the appalling casualties the Kurds are suffering at the hands of the Turkish military, is anything but safe.
Nor is Mr Erdogan's marriage of convenience with his Russian counterpart the first time that the Turkish leader has acted in a way that is directly contrary to NATO's interests.
Earlier in the summer, Mr Erdogan drew heavy criticism from Washington after he did an arms deal with Moscow that enabled Ankara to purchase Russia's S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, which was specifically designed to shoot down NATO warplanes. The Trump administration responded by saying it would exclude Turkey from the F-35 stealth fighter programme.
At a time when NATO is reconfiguring its resources to deal with the threat Russia poses to European security, from protecting the Baltic states from Russian aggression to dealing with cyber attacks, the cosy relationship that Mr Erdogan has embarked upon with Moscow can hardly be said to be in NATO's interests.
The time has come, therefore, for the alliance to give serious consideration about whether Ankara should be allowed to retain its NATO membership, or whether to abandon Turkey to pursue its pro-Russian stance.
A number of prominent Republicans, such as US Senator Lindsey Graham, have already called for Turkey's suspension from the alliance, and he has been the driving force behind attempts in Congress to impose sanctions against Ankara over its treatment of the Syrian Kurds.
Now the time has come for other NATO members states to weigh up whether it really is in their interests to allow the alliance's only Muslim state to retain its membership.
In the past it has been argued that ending Turkey's association with NATO would be a gift to Mr Putin, who would like to see nothing more than the NATO alliance collapse.
There is, though, a contrary argument to be made, namely that the alliance is already being weakened by allowing Turkey to retain its membership while at the same time pursuing policies which are directly opposed to NATO's interests.
Consequently, to my mind NATO would be far stronger, and better-equipped, to deal with its adversaries if it did not have to contend with a fifth columnist state like Turkey operating within its ranks.
Will Iran move from small nuke violations to the countdown to a bomb? - By Yonah Jeremy Bob -
Security and Defense: From rocky to explosive?
The problem with deadlines is that they force you either to act or look weak due to inaction.
Will Iran's expected November deadline and expected new violation of the 2015 nuclear deal finally lead to speeding up the countdown toward Tehran breaking out to a nuclear weapon and a possible Israeli or US preemptive strike?
Iran's three previous deadlines for the US to remove the sanctions against it and three recent minor violations of the deal have failed to pressure the US, Israel, the Saudis and most of the West into submitting to its positions.
The Islamic Republic wants the deal to remain as is.
In contrast, the other parties want a combination of extending the nuclear limits beyond the mid-2020s, new limits on Iran's hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East and new limits on its ballistic missile program.
Will the first week of November be just one more marker in a slow-motion deterioration in the US-Iran nuclear standoff, where both sides are still trying to minimize any major escalation? Or will the cool and low-grade conflict finally explode into a full-fledged hot conflict?
As usual, the devil is in the details.
After the Islamic Republic's September violation of the nuclear deal, there was speculation that Iran would finally up its uranium enrichment to the 20% level.
Many top experts say that this would be a game changer. Enrichment to the 20% level could cut Tehran's timeline to a nuclear bomb from 12 months to six months. That kind of a moving of the goalposts would likely lead to at least getting preemptive strike options ready.
Another major escalation that could cut the timeline all the way down to six months would be if Iran were to reinstall and start operating most of its IR-2m centrifuges for enriching uranium. Its standard IR-1 centrifuges are much less efficient.
Iran's increasingly aggressive behavior since its September deadline appears to indicate desperation and a greater readiness to let the standoff spin out of control.
It ordered or spearheaded an audacious and massive multifaceted attack on Saudi oil fields.
Also, it rejected a French compromise offer, which would have included a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
Tehran's attack on the Saudis was more brazen, and caused far more pressure on the Saudis and the world economy than its previous smaller and more camouflaged military moves against Saudi and US-allied oil tankers.
Searching for a diplomatic achievement in September, Trump appeared ready - against the advice of his advisers - to accept a French deal for dialing down the nuclear standoff.
France proposed that the US effectively roll back its sanctions by half in exchange for Iran returning to the nuclear deal limits as well as a $15 billion economic lifeline from the European Union.
But Trump wanted a summit and a photo-op, and Rouhani bristled at the idea of looking too cozy with Trump absent a broader deal that permanently removes US sanctions.
In addition, Trump's withdrawal from Syria has caused worries in Israel that Iran would view the move as a sign of weakness and would become even more aggressive on all the possible playing fields.
And yet, Iranian officials signaled last week that its next violation would be another gradual escalation, not a major spike. They said that they may start placing limits on their cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Of course, we need to wait to see what these limits mean.
If the limits mean that the IAEA cannot monitor the areas where most of the Islamic Republic's centrifuges for uranium enrichment are, this could be a major violation. If the IAEA cannot monitor the centrifuges, it would not even know if Tehran reinstalled the approximately 14,000 centrifuges (representing about 75% of the total) that it disconnected in 2015.
In that case, Israel and the US would need to start planning for the possibility that Iran is trying to clandestinely break out to a bomb without monitoring.
But chances are that Iran will not risk such an escalation. Restrictions on IAEA inspections will probably be more limited, so that Rouhani will not need to worry about unnecessarily scaring Israel or the US into action.
Signals along these lines come from a combination of Iran-promoted stories about new talks with the Saudis, and separate talks with China toward resolving the various standoffs.
After an Iranian ship was hit by missile strikes, it accused the US, Israel and the Saudis of cooperating, but has not rushed to retaliate.
A reported US cyberattack on Iran has left Tehran denying there was any attack, another likely sign of a desire to de-escalate and avoid further embarrassment.
Also, Rouhani may finally be facing real pressure from the EU.
Angered by the last four months of Iranian violations of the nuclear deal, harassment of EU ships and clandestine espionage operations on EU soil, France, England and Germany threatened Iran last month that they would pull out of the nuclear deal if the Islamic Republic were to go too far.
Iran is already not getting much business from the EU, due to US sanctions. But if that EU-3 group pulled out of the JCPOA, they could also trigger snap-back sanctions at the UN. Sanctions from the UN could force China and Russia to toe the sanctions line, something that would be a much bigger blow to Iran's already shaky economy.
At the same time, Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Iraq are dealing with unprecedented protests from their own Shi'ite sector against the poor economic situation.
In this volatile mix, Rouhani and his boss, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, may slow-walk any further escalations.
Until the US canceled waivers for eight countries in May - waivers that had allowed those countries to maintain business with Iran without getting sanctioned - Khamenei appeared ready to patiently wait out Trump until the November 2020 US election.
From May to September, Khamenei ramped up the pressure, hoping to gain some ground in the nuclear standoff.
But now Iran may see that its successes over the last several months have only been tactical. Blowing up or commandeering US or US-allied assets has created some pressure on the West to cut a deal with Iran that would remove Trump's sanctions, yet it has not changed America's basic conditions for that to happen.
If increasing tensions at a low-grade level is starting to raise costs for Iran more than achieving benefits, then Khamenei is back to the choices of cutting a deal along the lines of what the US wants, waiting for the 2020 election, or breaking out to a nuclear weapon.
In a September exclusive about Mossad director Yossi Cohen, The Jerusalem Post reported that sources close to him expect that the US would participate with Israel in a preemptive strike on Tehran's nuclear facilities if Khamenei tried to dash toward a bomb. This despite Trump's failure to use force to retaliate when Iran shot down an expensive US drone.
There may be some sense in the view that Trump sees an Iranian nuclear bomb as a redline that would change his approach, an approach that has otherwise deemphasized using US military force in the Middle East.
If Khamenei does not want to risk an attack on his nuclear facilities and is not ready at least for the French compromise (maybe he will unexpectedly become more open to this), then by the process of elimination, waiting and keeping the kettle at a low boil is his only option.
Of course, continued low-grade escalations have their own price in exposing that Iran keeps blinking first and that it will not yet go the mat to break the deadlock.
Come the first week of November, if Khamenei and Rouhani do not accomplish anything new strategically, they may wish that they had not set any deadlines.
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