Signs of Babylon's Fall in Iraq

It has been many months since I wrote an update on the situation in Iraq and its former prime minister, Maliki.

Recall that Iraq is a prophetic type of Babylon, since it is located in the old territory of Babylon. Nuri al-Maliki, who was prime minister for eight years until being replaced by Abadi a year ago in June 2014. I have believed for a long time that Maliki is a type of Belshazzar, the last Babylonian king who was overthrown in Daniel 5 when the Persians took the city of Babylon.

For this reason, I believe that Maliki is a major sign to watch in the overthrow of Mystery Babylon. Iraq is a regional prophetic type of the world-wide banking system (and the entire social order) of Mystery Babylon, which rules much of the world today. His election loss a year ago was a major sign of the fall of Babylon, but then he was able to secure a position as one of the Vice Presidents of Iraq. We realized then that his fall was really only a setback in his political career. He refused to leave the presidential palace, and he maintained his 2,500 bodyguards.

When he was elected last year, Abadi promised to reform the government and root out the corrupt officials, who had been stealing much of the government's money, including Maliki himself, who (it is said) has stolen more than $100 billion (dollars, not dinars). In July 2015 a protest movement began demonstrating in the streets and outside the Parliament, demanding reforms. The grand ayatollah in Najaf, Iraq gave a sermon backing the protesters. He urged Abadi to listen to the protesters. So Abadi made good on his promise and introduced legislation to eliminate or combine various government ministries from 33 down to just 22. The three Vice Presidential positions--including Maliki's position--were eliminated.

Maliki was then out of a job, right? Well, sort of. Again, he has refused to step down and is fighting these reforms. So while there is progress in his downfall, it has been a slow process, and it is still not completed. He has been helped by his hand-picked Supreme Court Justice, Mahmoud, who has also been fired by Abadi.

There is a real power struggle going on in Iraq right now. The broader conflict is between Iranian influence and the influence of al-Sistani, who is the spiritual head (ayatollah) in Iraq. In that sense, it is a power struggle between the two ayatollahs, as explained in this article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/iran-iraq-pushed-out_55ea3353e4b03784e27603d0

U.S. officials have, in secret documents released in 2011 by Wikileaks, spoken of Sistani as the "greatest political roadblock" for Iranian operatives in Iraq....

Sistani is based in Najaf, the spiritual capital of the Shiite branch of Islam. After the Iranian revolution of 1979, influence over the global Shiite community shifted from Najaf to Iran's chief religious center of Qom -- in large part because Iraq was ruled by a Sunni minority regime led by Saddam Hussein. But following the U.S. invasion in 2003, power -- and what's thought to be millions in funds from religious tourism and Shiite devotees around the world -- began to flow back to Najaf, historically the more significant site. Sistani and Iran have had a fragile alliance in the years since, one that's been threatened recently because the Iraqi ayatollah has implied that he blames the Iranian client Maliki for losing ground to the Islamic State....

Sistani called on Abadi last month to respond to the protest movement's demands in a message delivered in an important Friday sermon.

"The government listens to every word of what Najaf says very, very carefully. Every Friday, everyone is listening very closely" to Sistani's prayer message, the Iraqi official told HuffPost.

And Abadi has responded, eliminating a number of government positions -- including that of vice president, costing Maliki the job he gained after U.S. pressure and opposition at home led to his resignation last year. In the Iraqi parliament, there have been calls for Maliki to face trial over his loss of the city of Mosul to Islamic State forces....

Other reports tell us that Maliki recently visited Iran and took his family, leaving them in Iran when he returned to Iraq. It appears he is getting his family out of the country. Other reports say that the Iraqi government is ready to charge Maliki with many crimes, including some that might see him hanged. Right now, however, the main bill to be passed is the National Guard Act, incorporating the militias into the regular army. This would eliminate Maliki's military power and leave him defenseless to an arrest warrant.

To me, this power struggle is one of the main signs of Babylon's demise. If Maliki flees to Iran for asylum, it would be most interesting, because then, in a way, it would represent Persia (Iran) taking Maliki prisoner. While this may sound strange, seeing that Maliki has been backed by Iran all this time, the situation would also be an embarrassment to Iran just as Iran is about to be set free from sanctions and rejoin the world of nations. My guess is that Maliki would not survive long in Iran.

The second major sign of Babylon's fall, which I have written about in the past, is the price of silver. Persia was described in Daniel 2 as "arms of silver." I believe that when the price of silver hits $50/oz, it will be a sign of Babylon's fall. It came within pennies of that price in 2011 before being forced back down by the Babylonian manipulators. It seems that the Babylonian financial oligarchs were frightened that it might top $50. They drove down the paper price of silver by "selling" huge amounts of silver that they did not have.

A third sign, which is more specific to Washington D.C. involves Washington state, where fires are burning record numbers of forests. We have long seen that Washington state is like the spiritual headquarters for Washington D.C. When we moved to Washington state in 1993, we took note of this. Now there are fires burning everywhere in that state. This may well be a sign of a spiritual fire burning in Washington D.C.

Watch and pray.