A world on fire

Who started the fire? Billy Joel? Marilyn Monroe? All I want to know is how we plan to stop the fire.

In recent weeks I have reported on the increasingly dangerous stance of Iran, Syria and the Palestinian occupied territories. I have shown how Russia is not only returning to her cold War stance, but is also pulling strings in the Middle East.

These developments are have dangerously swung Islamic fundamentalism from a North-South axis (Iran to Libya) to an East-West axis that stretches from the gates of China, in Afghanistan, to the borders of Israel. Revelation 9:16 predicts that 200million horsemen (of China), will take that route across the Euphrates, into the plains of Megiddo.

Coincidentally, the US economy is also worrying vulnerable. The recent fire sale of Bear Stearns is just the tip of the iceberg. Sub-prime issues have recently led to fiscal alleviation of distressed homeowners, federal support of the financial system, a sharp drop in interest rates and now a 75 point drop in Fed investment rates. At the same time the US deficit is at or near the $10trillion level, exceeding 75% of the US GDP - but as recession bites the gap will narrow even further. Of course the US government remains deeply perturbed about a Mid-East meltdown and has committed additional resources to Iraq and Afghanistan whilst trying to restrain Israel from a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear threat, but with so many domestic distractions, can she follow through?

Russia is shrewdly pulling strings without risking a direct regional confrontation with the US, but while she is strengthening her strategic position, she is also carefully selecting a ripe moment to seize the initiative and pounce on the opportunity to secure a significant stake in the Middle-East. To make matters worse, Russia has experienced a windfall from soaring oil prices, which has boosted her swagger: resulting in some significant saber-rattling including an upcoming May-Day military parade.

Now add to this heady mix the fact that China, on the other side of the Hindu-Kush gateway to the region, is significantly strengthening her military prowess whilst asserting her might against Tibet and Taiwan.

Slap bang in the middle of all of this, is a moderate Islamic state with a large nuclear missile force and an even larger political crisis.

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan still retains power, but a new prime minister is about to be announced by the late Benazir Bhutto’s son. A four-party coalition has determined who will lead the incoming administration, but the honeymoon will be over shortly after the marriage has been consummated. This will being a serious reality check to a nation besieged by terrorism, chronic energy issues, rising fuel prices, the grounding of national carrier planes, galloping inflation and the rise of the Taliban.

Other threats loom over Pakistan. Ghandi once predicted that four conflicts would haunt the region, following the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan. Three have already come and gone, each engaging a million men or more and accounting for major casualties, especially in Pakistan. Pakistan built up her nuclear capability to match India and now finds herself facing the kinds of internal conflicts that could trigger the last and greatest conflict. Musharraf’s tenuous hold on power is barely keeping the peace in a politically volatile region under threat from fundamentals, who resent India, the US and everyone else, just as Germany once resented the axis powers.

The Taliban, once the popular savior of an Afghanistan reeling from years of Soviet oppression, festered under misguided US foreign policy, to assume power of that country for five years. After Bush’s initiatives against the “axis of evil”, the Taliban declined, but then resurged in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, to become a key link in the emerging East-West, Islamic fundamentalist axis.

Russia is carefully manipulating the axis, using the levers that both unite and inflame Islamic fundamentalism: Anti-Israel and Anti-US sentiment.

The First World War was a dry tinder box waiting for some nut to start a fire, until the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand initiated the chain of events that brought the axis powers to war with Germany. Four years later millions lay dead in military graves across Europe and Germany was manacled by the Versailles treaty. The resulting resentment stirred in German hearts for another 27 years before the world found itself once again at the brink of war. Once again a single, misguided and tactically imprudent act, on the part of the main protagonist, resulted in war: only it was a far more deadly, six year affair.

Now the board is all set up again, with all kinds of forces circling the strategic opportunities prevailing in the middle-east. This leaves us with the question: what nut or foolish incident will light the fire and trigger the domino effect that will bring the world into a terrible meltdown in the Middle-East? My only answer is that, aside from the likes of Ahmadinejad, there are many factors and more than enough crazies capable of starting a conflagration, not the least being the ripeness of the moment.

© Peter Eleazar at http://www.bethelstone.com/