Ok, first. I want to apologize to the 12 or so people who read “Vote for Pompeo in November.” It was a partisan rant. I read some news regarding Iran that made me really angry and shocked, and I took it out on my keyboard. This is the post I should have written. It is of course still from my bias, but it doesn’t have the same vitriol that the first post on this subject did. I have tried in this writing campaign I’ve been on to speak the truth as I know it with a loving motivation not an angry motivation. I wrote the previous post on this subject with an angry motivation. Please accept my apology and accept my second attempt. I hope it is informative even if it is not how you digest the same information set.
with love, Natalie
The Middle Eastern Cold War has everything to do with the election next month. Have you heard about it? It’s been ongoing between Iran and Saudi Arabia since 1952. And Iran is getting a foot up tomorrow— the arms embargo is lifting. The United Nations denied the United States request for an automatic renewal, a “SnapBack,” that the UN has every right to enact. In effect, Iran is now able to buy arms from other nations and other nations can sell arms to Iran. In response, Trump is petitioning Congress to put sanctions on the South American countries that Iran launders money and arms through, which they apparently then supply to Hezbollah.
Cold War is always about strategic alliance. Donald Trump has been touted as unqualified “to have his finger on the bottom”— meaning America’s first strike nuclear capacity. November’s presidential election is not about who in the White House has their finger on the button, it’s about who holds the pen. I mean the pen that signs the treaties that decide who wins the Middle Eastern Cold War. The hand that holds the pen that decides whether it’s Iran or Saudi Arabia that will rule the Middle East.
It’s not a leap of the imagination to say our lingering proxy war with Russia is currently played out through Iran’s proxy war with Saudi Arabia. Yet, in actuality, it is our trade war with China that Iran and Saudi Arabia have become proxies of.
“The bomb” is the least of our international affairs concerns as sneakier traps are being laid. As Iran destabilizes the Mideast, China has swooped in to colonize the pieces broken by the bad actor. Beginning in North Africa where Libya and Egypt were left in shambles by the Arab Spring, China is asserting itself into power vacuums that open new opportunities for its own trade dominance.
Seriously guys, let Pompeo finish what he has started in the Middle East. A power vacuum in our state department is the last thing anyone needs right now.
For your consideration:
- Look into how Iran’s destabilization efforts have led to war and famine in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.
- Look into how China stepped into the power vacuums we (Obama & Co.) created in Libya and Egypt.
There are more people in the Trump administration than just Trump. And if you don’t want to vote for Trump, vote for Pompeo. Pompeo is a lion in his approach to Iran.
The folly of Iran appeasement in our previous administration cannot be overstated. It is seriously as though Obama/Biden/Clinton were actively steering our international affairs against the interests of the United States! And not just in terms of security, in terms of trade dominance. The American involvement in the Middle East is far from being about the Bushs’ egos or a supposed evangelical “obsession” with Israel. Today, American involvement in the Middle East is about China not crushing America via the trade doors that Iran opens for China through destabilizing its Arab neighbors.
Overthrowing America’s position as the hegemonic military and economic power in the world has been a chess game China has been setting up on many fronts for a long time. COVID is her moment. And she will take it. I recently read a headline that explained: China is reorganizing its own economy for a globalism that relegates the US to one side. One small side. This is why the Trump tariffs that put globalism on the verge of extinction were survivalism not nationalism.
The end of globalism was reality in January of this year, before COVID jumped the Pacific. You can google “end of globalism January 2020” and see what the headlines were. Why would anyone want the end of globalism? In order for globalism to be achieved, America cannot have the strength it has. Putting America into a less economically advantaged position is necessary for globalism to work in the long run. So as globalists, Obama/Biden/Clinton did have incentive to steer our foreign policies away from our interests.
People will say China’s move against America is because of Trump. These pieces have been in play far longer than Trump has been in politics. Which is for 4 years. He has only had any kind of political decision making power for four years versus more than 40 years for Biden and Clinton each. Who has really had the time and influence to shift China’s foreign relations and economic stratagems?
The US returning to less than a full court press in terms of brokering Israel’s strategic alliances, which allows us to undermine Iran’s standing in the Arab League, would not be foolish, it would be catastrophic. The strategic alliances that Pompeo has been brokering for Israel are all about checking Iran in an aggressive enough way that doesn’t just keep them from nuclear armament, it isolates them from other Arab nations. Nothing chills bedfellows like an Arab nation befriending Israel, and Pompeo has six lined up.
Iran is a meddler in other Arab nations affairs, if I’m to vastly understate it. They have been an instigator of unrest and a terrorist equipper in their neighboring countries. In fact, their actions in Iraq since we pulled back troops almost guarantee that we will have to go back in and start over. We have an obligation to Iraqis to continue working toward a stable government for their nation.
Iran’s tactics always involve raising up protest movements and instigating class/ethnic/religious contention. They have been the gasoline behind the civil wars in Syria and Yemen. As Iraq rebuilds from Saddam Hussein’s regime and from war generated by us, Iran has been confounding the efforts of the foundling democracy opportunistically as less and less American presence remains.
Also announced in the last two days: China is now supportive of Iran’s nuclear capacity. In fact, Russia and China have both said they would sell arms to Iran. Venezuela and Colombia have already voiced intentions to buy arms from Iran. I hope it is now clear that Pompeo’s mission to create normalized relations between Israel and her neighbors is not (just) Christian Zionism, it is practical! The only way to stop Iran is to isolate them. America’s best defense against being utterly toppled by China is via Iran through the series of Mideast peace deals that people think mean nothing.
Just because the peace deals don’t create a two-state solution in Israel, commentators feign ignorance as to why these deals matter for all nations and ethnic groups, not just Israel and Palestine.
Zoom out, please. Our Middle Eastern affairs concerning Israel are not always actually about Israel, or Palestinians. Yet, for America’s benefit, Pompeo’s simple obedience in relentlessly supporting Israel has led to brilliant foreign relations that are decidedly effective to protect America’s ability to remain an autonomous and self-determined nation.
Vote Trump to vote for Pompeo. After all, a president’s real realm of influence is foreign relations, on which front Trump is killing it even if it is just by appointing Pompeo.
In contrast, the Obama/Biden/Clinton foreign relations plan allowed Iran to train and install ISIS and empower Hezbollah, and generate an Arab Spring in six countries. The end result of the Arab Spring was autocratic overthrows that created even more extreme government— Islamist theocracy rather than democracy. In 2015, Obama also spearheaded the UN resolution that set the October 18, 2020 expiration date for the arms embargo, which was indefinite until then. A return to such folly wouldn’t just destroy the Middle East, America’s largest rivals would be the biggest winners. And don’t overlook that Turkey is the newest country being groomed by Iran. Look out Europe.
The following is an alarming set of headlines from various points of time and a variety of sources (none of which are Fox News):
“The Weapons Ban on Iran is Ending.” from the Economist. October 13, 2020.
“Bill Introduced to Congress Aims to Stop Hezbollah Money Laundering.” from the Jerusalem Post. October 16, 2020.
“Obama Should Never Have Appeased Iran.” from the Atlantic. January 12, 2020
“In Rebuke of US, China backs Iran nuclear deal, calls for Mideast security forum.” from the Times of Israel. October 11, 2020
“UN Arms Embargo on Iran.” from SIPRI databases. January 20, 2016, includes UN resolution document links and UN voting records on those resolutions.
“The Cold War Between Saudi Arabia and Iran That’s Tearing Apart the Middle East, explained.” from Vox. January 4, 2016.
“A Country by Country Breakdown of Saudi and Iranian Influences in the Middle East.” from The Globe and Mail. April 14, 2011.
“Famine Emerges as UN Theme, Crystallized by Yemen Disaster.” from The New York Times. September 24, 2020.
“Why Iran is Getting the Blame for an Attack on Saudi Arabia Claimed by Yemen’s Houthis.” from the Washington Post. September 16, 2019.
“China in the Mediterranean: Implications of Expanding Sino-North African Relations.” from the Brookings Institute. July 2020.
For an American administration to maneuver alongside Islamic radicals and China the way that Obama’s did, there had to have been a common interest between such ideologically opposed world powers— the only thing they all three have in common is a desire for Christianity to decrease in global influence. Christianity is monochromatically cast as the intolerant colonizer though it is the most culturally adaptable religion in history, as Mario Murillo interestingly asserts. We did colonize, but we also acculturated in equal measure to the acculturation we acquired. Many of our customs and traditions and all our holidays are from other cultures.
Funnily, Christians were persecuted as atheists in Rome for not worshipping enough gods! We weren’t religious enough for the Romans. Our freedom in Christ to “be all things to all people” still confounds the stridently religious as much as it does the rest of the world. This is why Islamists call us the Great Satan– because we corrupt Muslims with our free-wheelin’ ways.
If you digest the news through the lens of the Apocalypse then the peace Pompeo and Kushner are brokering on behalf of Trump and Pence really could be a harbinger of the end of the world! But if they don’t finish the job they started, it is more than likely just the end of America— Christianity’s haven of world influence.
You might say, “Natalie, it is not for Christians to have vested interests in their own nation, we are a global church.”
Yes, however, Paul wrote to Timothy saying to “pray for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life, godly and dignified in every way.” 1 Timothy 2:2.
See this: In the Bible, every empire that God’s people were exiled into had just as much pluralism and freedom of religion as America does today. Egypt, Babylon, and Persia (Egypt, Iraq, Iran) — in each case we arrive on the scene of a story of God’s rescue at the precise moment when the empire’s leader has legislated a sudden shift from religious freedom for foreigners to forced worship of a state religion or religious suppression of Jews specifically. From Moses to Shadrach, Mishach, and Abednego then on to Mordecai— we meet God’s people in the moment religious freedom has been revoked. Test me on that in Exodus, Daniel and Esther.
It was always when freedom of religion was taken away in the empire that God judged the empire and delivered his people from them. We do need to be vested in threats to America’s freedom at home and abroad. Praying above all. America is protector-in-chief of all religious freedom globally, not just Christian privilege.
For the spiritual context that got me looking into studying this history, find my posts from September: “11 Arab Nations Are Ready for a Revolution” and “A Dispatch for Intercessors: An Angelic Messenger and the Inheritance of the Nations.”
If you read these dreams, it would be significant to note that there are 10 nations caught between the influence of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Which nation will overcome the other and lead 11 nations in a free and open marketplace of ideas and finance, giving an 11th Hour Release of the Gospel in the region?
I’ll say this— I think it’ll be Iran. If Iranians win their own freedom from radical Islamist oppression, they will lead the Arab nations caught up in the Middle Eastern Cold War to religious freedom. Pray for Iran.
Imagine how a mighty move of God in just one country could change the world. The gospel breaking forth in just one nation could change history. Pray for Iran.
The last time Persia was this important Esther was queen.
LAST UPDATED: October 19, 2020
