Selection # 5 – Persia Reborn

This selected entry was originally published here on December 2, 2012.

Scott:  My name is Scott Paton.  I am talking today with Allan Colston.  He is the author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac“.  This is a book dealing with prophecy.

For those listeners who may be new to this topic, this Podcast is another in the series “Signs of the Times”, and is titled “Persia Reborn”. Hello Allan and welcome to the Podcast.

Thanks Scott. It’s a pleasure to be with you again.

Scott:  So Allan, I see that the title of today’s talk is called “Persia Reborn”.  What exactly do you mean by that?

Well Scott, you will recall that in earlier Podcasts I explained that the ancient prophets predicted that our present world age would end in a series of cataclysms brought on by a close encounter with a comet.

Because of the catastrophes that would afflict the earth at that time, and the devastation caused by the global earthquakes and Tsunamis that would follow, the ancient prophets referred to this event as “The Great and Terrible Day of the Lord.”

According to the prophet Ezekiel, this Terrible Day of the Lord would happen after the Jews had returned to the lands of their fore-fathers, and Israel became a nation state once more. As I pointed out in my last Podcast, this occurred on May 14, 1948.

In chapter 38 of his Biblical book of prophecy, Ezekiel went on to say that after Israel had once again become a nation,  it would be threatened by many nations, and that the armies of these nations would surround Israel on every side.

Now if this prediction proves to be correct, in the same way that his prediction about the creation of the state of Israel was correct, then Ezekiel gives us a clear timeline as to when this comet will appear.

So what this means Scott, is that because we now know what to look for, we can study world events and see if they unfold in the way that Ezekiel predicted they would. And that is what I plan to do in succeeding Podcasts.

Scott:  So Allan, how does this relate to Persia?

Well Scott, according to Ezekiel, the great coalition of armies that would march on Israel would come from, and I quote, “the north parts“, and from countries like “Persia, Libya and Ethiopia“.

Of particular interest here, and what I want to talk about today, is Ezekiel’s reference to the land of Persia.

What I find significant, Scott, is that if Ezekiel’s words do prove to be correct, then the old foes of Persia and Israel will once again confront one another, just as they did in Biblical times.

Scott:  So Allan, does that mean we are about to see a replay of the Bible conflicts of the past?

Well Scott, yes and no. For while the modern state of Israel is slightly less than 65 years old, and is similar in many ways to what it was in Biblical times, the ancient empire of Persia has been completely transformed.

For starters, the Persia of old no longer exists. The old empire has been replaced by a new country called the Islamic Republic of Iran. This new republic officially came into being on April 1st, 1979, so modern Iran is just over 33 years old.

It certainly wasn’t like that in Biblical times. For the Persia of old was one of the great empires of the world. Its history stretched back to before the Iron Age, to a time when the western nations of today didn’t even exist.

Ancient Persia has been home to some of the world’s oldest civilizations, with urban settlements dating back to about 4000 years BC. At the height of its golden age, it ruled an area extending from Libya and Spain in the west, to the coast of India in the east.

Over the centuries Persia was ruled by a succession of dynasties, beginning with the Medes, who unified the nation in 625 BC. However, it was later conquered by the invading armies of the Greeks under Alexander, followed by the Arabs, the Turks and the Mongols.

The turning point in Persian history happened between 633 and 656 AD, when the country was invaded by Moslem Arabs. This was the time when their ancient religion based on the teachings of the Prophet Zoroaster, was replaced by the religion of Islam.

After many years of foreign occupation by various invading armies, Persia was once again unified as an independent state in the year 1501, under Islamic rulers known as the Safavids.

But whereas up until that time, most of the population of Persia were Sunni Moslems, under the Safavids they were forced to become Shi’ites, and from then on Shi’a Islam became the official religion of Persia.

Another significant change introduced by the Safavids, was that Persia became a monarchy, and was ruled either by an emperor or a Shah. This system of government continued until up until 1979, when the Shah Reza Pahlavi was driven from power.

Scott:  Wasn’t that the time of the American hostage crisis?

Yes Scott, it was. The revolution actually began in January 1978, when street riots broke out against the increasingly authoritarian rule of the Shah. These disturbances continued throughout that year until, in January 1979, the Shah fled after strikes and demonstrations had effectively paralyzed the country.

On February 1st, 1979, one of the instigators of the revolution, a cleric by the name of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returned from exile in Paris to become the Supreme Leader of the country.

The Shah meanwhile had been diagnosed with cancer, and he traveled to the United States for treatment. This was the pretext used by the Ayatollah to organize students to storm the American embassy in Tehran.

Fifty two embassy personnel were captured when students poured into the embassy compound , and they were held hostage in Iran for 444 days. They were finally released in January 1981, on the day that President Ronald Reagan took office.

Incidentally, it was also at this time that Khomeini began referring to America as the “Great Satan”. However, this ideological slogan proved to have serious consequences for Iran, as it unleashed a powerful anti-Iranian backlash throughout the West that still continues to this day.

And this is where the destinies of Israel and Iran became intertwined once again. For no sooner had Iran become a nation state in 1979, than it became embroiled in civil war, just like the state of Israel had been some 30 years before.

At the time that Israel became a state, the United Nations called for the land of Palestine to be partitioned into two parts. One part was to consist of an independent Arab state, while the other part was to become an independent Jewish state.

The UN also decided that the city of Jerusalem would not belong to either the Jews or the Arabs, but would instead be ruled by an International Trustee System, administered by the United Nations themselves.

Well as you can imagine Scott, this was pretty much a recipe for disaster, and there could have been little surprise when civil war broke out between the Jews and the Arabs the very next day.

Scott:  So Allan, how does this compare with the situation in Iran?

The situation in Iran was slightly different. In their case, the civil war didn’t break out between Iranians and non-Iranians, but between the Iranians themselves. The revolution was between supporters of the Shah, and those who aligned themselves with the Ayatollah.

The revolution itself was relatively short-lived, as the Pahlavi dynasty of the Shah collapsed when the military declared its neutrality a short while later. And the country officially became an Islamic Republic when the people approved a national referendum on April 1, 1979.

But this didn’t bring an end to the fighting. Soon after, Marxist guerillas joined rebels in various parts of the country, engaging in fierce fighting with government forces. The most violent of these revolts was the Kurdish uprising, which led to thousands of casualties.

It was while Iranian Government forces were embroiled in defeating their internal enemies, that Saddam Hussein tried to take advantage of the ongoing political and social crisis, by launching a full scale assault on Iran.

On September 22, 1980, the Iraqi army invaded Iran at Khuzestan, which took the leadership of Iran completely by surprise. This was the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war which was to last for six years, and cause almost a million casualties in Iran.

And it was out of this conflict that the seeds were planted that would lead, some thirty years later, to the armed confrontation that now exists between the states of Israel and Iran.

And this unfolding saga has proved to be as devious, twisted and malign as the plot of any fiction novel.

Scott:  I sense that you’re about to take us on a James Bond type ride. Am I right?

That’s a good analogy Scott, because the intrigue associated with the Iranian manoeuvres over the last few years would easily rival any spy story.

But to go back to the time of the Iran-Iraq war which finally ended in 1988, Iran’s neighbor Afghanistan was involved in a battle of its own, with US backed mujahadeen  fighting Soviet forces in a conflict that ultimately cost the Afghans over a million lives.

And having just emerged from a costly war of its own, both in terms of casualties and resources, the overriding concern of the Iranian leadership at that time was to find a way to avoid being over-run by either of these two superpowers.

This fear was undoubtedly reinforced some years later when the Americans attacked Iraq, and destroyed the forces of Saddam Hussein. So in short order, the leadership in Iran saw both of their neighboring countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, being invaded by American troops.

So Iran now found itself in the same position that Israel had been some thirty years earlier. And their response to their predicament was to do exactly what the Israelis did. I suspect you can probably guess what that was Scott.

Scott:  Well Allan, my guess would be that they decided to build an atom bomb.

Pretty shrewd Scott. You’re right. As history has now shown, both nations decided to adopt the same strategy to protect themselves from the forces ranged against them. They decided to develop nuclear weapons.

And the reason they did this was simple. Iran realised, just like Israel had learned before them, that those countries that had their own nuclear capability were safe from attack, both from the West and from the East.

Outside of the main nuclear nations of the West, allied with China and Russia, only four countries have developed the capacity to produce nuclear weapons. These four are India and Pakistan, along with Israel and North Korea.

Of these four nations, only Israel has never publicly admitted to having nuclear weapons, choosing instead to follow a policy of ambiguity. Under this policy, Israel neither admits or denies that it has nuclear weapons, even though this is now taken for granted by its enemies.

From a defensive standpoint, perhaps the best example of the protective power of nuclear technology, is the country of North Korea. Ever since they exploded a small nuclear device in October 2006, North Korea has been safe from outside attack.

This despite some of the most provocative behaviour by any nation, and despite continuing threats to the people of South Korea. The fact that North Korea could effectively do whatever they liked, and thumb their noses at the rest of the world, has not been lost upon the leaders of Iran.

And if there were any doubts about the effectiveness of this strategy, they have surely been laid to rest by the recent overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Shortly after Gaddafi seized power in a military coup in 1969, he tried to obtain nuclear technology.

Although his initial efforts met with failure, over the years he managed to acquire both the expertise and the fissionable material needed to succeed.

However, shortly after the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, Gaddafi surprised everyone by announcing that he had decided voluntarily to eliminate his stock of chemical weapons, and to stop the production of nuclear material.

This later proved to have been a critical mistake, because if he hadn’t done this, it is unlikely that NATO would have risked intervening in the Libyan crisis that led to his death, and the collapse of his authoritarian regime.

Scott:  So Allan, how does this tie in with what happened in Iran?

Well Scott, Like Gaddafi, the Ayatollah Khomeini no doubt saw the value of having nuclear weapons. But partly as a result of his religious dogma, and partly because of an amazing sequence of strategic blunders, Iran has stumbled from crisis to crisis.

As I suggested earlier, what has taken place in Iran over the last few years would surely rival any James Bond novel for deception, mystery and intrigue.

In following Podcasts, I want to talk about some of these blunders and explain firstly, why the present strategy in Iran has brought the country to the brink of disaster, and secondly, how this will likely lead to the precise scenario predicted by Ezekiel.

And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here

Scott:  Thanks Allan.  You have given us some fascinating insights into what is happening today in the Middle East, and how these events seem to be unfolding according to ancient prophecy.

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