War is raging in Syria, and apparently, it’s only going to get worse. For a while, Turkey has been itching to get involved. In part, this is because the Turkish regime hates the Kurds. Yet, there is a more obvious reason: they want Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to be removed from power.
To wiggle their way into the conflict, they’ve tried to use the ISIS excuse, like Russia, the USA and others. This hasn’t been very convincing, because Turkey is a not-so-secret financial supporter of the Islamic State (ISIS). In the meantime, they’ve shot down a Russian plane, which killed a Russian pilot, shelled Kurds in Syria and generally looked for any excuse to preserve the rebellion against Assad. Recently, they found a very good reason to get involved: a bombing in Ankara which killed several people. Unsurprisingly, they blamed the Kurdish group YPG and Assad. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said “YPG is a pawn of the Syrian regime and the regime is directly responsible for the Ankara attack. Turkey reserves the right to take any measure against the Syrian regime.” How convenient.
Well, Saudi Arabia doesn’t like Bashar al-Assad either. In fact, the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, Adel al-Jubeir, told CNN “Bashar al-Assad will leave — have no doubt about it. He will either leave by a political process or he will be removed by force.” Those are some fighting words right there, and it appears that the Saudis plan to make good on their threat. They’ve organized a large military exercise involving countries throughout the Middle East and Africa, including Bahrain, Chad, the Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. No, I probably couldn’t point to half of those countries on a map, but some of those nations have legitimate militaries.
Of course, the Saudis will need all of the help they can get, because Russia, Iran and Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah aren’t going to just let Saudi Arabia topple Assad. Rather than back down, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev asked “Do they really think they would win such a war very quickly?” For what it’s worth, the addition of Turkish forces probably wouldn’t make the situation any better.
In a previous blog, we looked at how the Antichrist will be a Russian leader (Ezekiel 38:2) that rises to power in Syria (Daniel 11:21). Eventually, a massive military force will attack him, but this “flood of armies shall be swept away before him and be broken, and the prince of the covenant as well” (Daniel 11:22). Put differently, a huge military force from many nations will attack the Antichrist in Syria. The military force will include Israel, because “the prince of the covenant” is going to be swept away (Daniel 11:22). That’s probably a reference to an Israeli ruler or a general. After this battle, the Antichrist will make a deal with Israel and many nations (Daniel 11:23; Daniel 9:27), and this begins the countdown to the return of Jesus to establish His Kingdom in its fullness.
So, let’s keep an eye on all of this. Sure, it could fizzle out and come to nothing. Yet, it could end up being very significant, especially if Israel gets involved.