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The coup in Baghdad

Saturday August 8 was the constitutional deadline for President Masum on Iraq to give Parliament a nominee for Prime Minister. Masum failed to meet that deadline, as the discussions behind the scenes were still ongoing.

Masum was elected president on July 24, and it was his first job to put forth the nominee from the largest elected party. The largest party is the State of Law, the party of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, but this party is part of a larger coalition, The National Alliance. The current dispute is that Maliki insists that constitutionally speaking, his State of Law is the largest party; however, the Supreme Court has ruled that The National Alliance is the largest party.

In the current dispute, Maliki’s support comes from his own party, but not from the National Alliance as a whole. Most of them want Maliki to be replaced and to disallow him from serving a third term. And so they have been negotiating behind the scenes for a nominee that could be acceptable to the majority of the National Alliance. When they passed the deadline at midnight, Maliki made an after-midnight speech in which he accused President Masum of violating the constitution. He then brought in troops loyal to himself and threatened to arrest the President.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/10/world/meast/iraq-baghdad-tensions/index.html

This is the action of a desperate Prime Minister who does not want to lose his position and thus also his immunity from prosecution for his crimes. He knew that arrest warrants had already been issued for the moment that he stepped down from power. In his view, he had no choice but to face the hangman or institute a political coup and become Prime Minister for life, as Saddam Hussein had done before him.

The constitutional question had already been resolved four years earlier, when Maliki’s party came in second. Maliki then claimed that his party was part of The National Alliance, which actually was the largest party as a whole. The Supreme Court accepted that and allowed Maliki to be nominated for Prime Minister. But now Maliki claims it was a forgery and insists that The National Alliance is NOT the largest party.

He appealed to the Supreme Court, which told him that the earlier ruling still stands. Maliki continued to protest and bluster, trying to find a legal way to remain as Prime Minister. When his efforts failed, he moved in with his personal bodyguards loyal to himself, claiming that President Masum was acting unconstitutionally.

In the face of such pressure, President Masum, according to one report, has submitted his resignation. However, in another report, a few hours after Maliki's troops moved in, Masum nominated Abadi as Prime Minister (to be presented to Parliament for a vote). Reports are still unclear what is happening on the ground, but it is clear that this is the big showdown.

In fact, the latest report is that Abadi is now, in fact, the Prime Minister, and that it has been published in The Gazette, where everything has to be published in order to be official. If this is true, then Maliki has failed in his coup, unless he tries to mobilize the troops.

What does it mean?

In the past eight years, Maliki has oppressed the Sunnis and the Kurds in the attempt to make Iraq a Shiite state. His government has not been represented by all parties, and this has caused a lot of bad feeling. When ISIS invaded from Syria, the majority of the Sunnis did not oppose their takeover of various cities, nor did they try to defend Iraq as a nation, because they were disgusted with the way Maliki had been treating them. The Kurds in the far north defended their own territory, but refused to come to the aid of Maliki’s government in Baghdad.

Even the US government withheld support from Maliki’s government until he assured them that he would step down and allow a more representative government to be set up. Once the US committed itself to military aid, then Maliki instituted his coup, claiming to be upholding the constitution.

There will be consequences. Certainly, Maliki knows that, for otherwise he would have done this earlier. The coup was not his first choice, but it will be his last.

Maliki is Belshazzar

I have written many times that Maliki is fulfilling the role of Belshazzar, the king of Babylon who was overthrown by the Medes and Persians in Daniel 5. This event occurred the night of the “handwriting on the wall” (Daniel 5:5). We read in Daniel 5:30 and 31,

³⁰ That same night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain. ³¹ So Darius the Mede received the kingdom at about the age of sixty-two.

It appears that we have now entered the final showdown. The Scales of Justice are coming, represented by the constellation Libra (Sept. 23 – Oct. 22). Daniel 5:27 says,

²⁷ TEKEL—you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient.

Iraq is a type of Babylon, because it is located in the territory of the old Babylonian Empire. Mystery Babylon today is a worldwide banking system, but we are able to watch events in Iraq, simply because Iraq is a prophetic type. In fact, when President Bush overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003, he established the pattern for the overthrow of the entire world banking system without realizing it. He did this in 2003, which was 70 years after America itself went into bankruptcy. The big banks foreclosed on the government and put it into servitude to banking interests.

We are now 70 years after the Bretton Woods convention in 1944. It is the next endpoint for Mystery Babylon. 1944 70 = 2014.

The way things are developing, it looks more and more as if October 16 could be the actual end of Maliki’s rule as Belshazzar. This date is the eighth day of Tabernacles and falls within the time of the Scales of Justice (Libra).

The Handwriting on the Wall

In Daniel 5:25-28 we are told precisely what the divine Hand wrote on the wall, which made Belshazzar soil his trousers. The words reveal bankruptcy proceedings.

²⁵ Now this is the inscription that was written out: “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.” ²⁶ This is the interpretation of the message: “MENE”—God has numbered [audited] your kingdom and put an end to it. ²⁷ “TEKEL”—you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient [bankrupt]. ²⁸ “PERES”—your kingdom has been divided and given over [sold] to the Medes and Persians.

These words are also monetary terms that reveal the timing of the future fall of Mystery Babylon. The words above are in Aramaic, the language of Babylon. But if we translate them into Hebrew we see this:

MENE = MINA (to number, to review)

TEKEL = SHEKEL (to weigh)

PERES = PERES (to divide break in two)

Money in those days was not paper but coinage. Their smallest monetary unit was a gerah, which is mentioned in Exodus 30:13, “the shekel is twenty gerahs”). So we may translate these words into gerahs.

MINA = 1000 gerahs

MINA = 1000 gerahs

SHEKEL = 20 gerahs

PERES = 500 gerahs

TOTAL: 2,520 gerahs

That number (2,520) is the “seven times” of tribulation that Israel was to undergo if the nation rebelled against the divine law and refused to be obedient to God.

In other words, the handwriting on the wall prophesied of the fall of Babylon which was to occur after 2,520 years of beast rule. As I have already shown in recent writings, the year 1914-1917 was 2,520 years after God gave Babylon the divine mandate over the earth. But since Judah was independent for 100 years from 163-63 B.C., which deprived the beast of a century to rule, that lost century must be added at the end.

And so, we have finally arrived at the time of the end: 2014-2017.

Since Mystery Babylon is secretive by nature, most people have difficulty even knowing of its existence. So most people do not have opportunity to monitor its activities or to know its end. So God has raised up Iraq as a sign of Mystery Babylon. That way the activities of Mystery Babylon are revealed by the news coming from Iraq. Hence, Maliki is Belshazzar, and the current of the Euphrates River is the currency of the banking system. Daniel represents the overcomers living under Mystery Babylon.

In the end, Iraq will divide into three parts: Kurds, Sunni, and Shia. This will be a sign of Mystery Babylon as well, for this is prophesied in Revelation 16:19, “and the great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell.” We must have the ability to view the world news not only as actual news, but also on its subtle level as signs.