CHAPTER TWELVE: FUTURE HEADLINE

IRAQ EMERGES FROM CHAOS AS REGION’S WEALTHIEST COUNTRY

When it comes to the future of Iraq, there is no shortage of naysayers.

Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, a Democrat, says America may have won the war in Iraq but warns “we may lose the peace.”253

Senator Robert Byrd, the Democrat from West Virginia, says “the cost of the war has spiraled,” yet “the situation in Iraq has gone from bad to worse” and “the level of violence only keeps growing, week after week, month after month.”²⁵⁴

Democratic senator John Kerry of Massachusetts says that “invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions, and, if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight.” He adds that President Bush “misled, miscalculated, and mismanaged every aspect of this undertaking and he has made the achievement of our objective—a stable Iraq, secure within its borders, with a representative government—harder to achieve.”²⁵⁵

Democrats are not alone in their lack of hope for Iraq.

Senator Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican, says, “Things aren’t getting better; they’re getting worse” and warns point blank: “The reality is, we’re losing in Iraq.”256 He adds, “I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think . . . further destabilization will occur.”²⁵⁷

Tucker Carlson, formerly one of CNN’s Republican commentators, was once a big supporter of “regime change” and getting rid of Saddam Hussein and his thugs. Now he says, “I am embarrassed that I supported the war in Iraq.”²⁵⁸

The list of such doubting Thomases in Washington and in the media goes on and on, as do the list of books preemptively declaring defeat. Among them:

LOSING IRAQ: INSIDE THE POSTWAR RECONSTRUCTION FIASCO

by David L. Phillips

SQUANDERED VICTORY: THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION AND THE BUNGLED EFFORT TO BRING DEMOCRACY TO IRAQ

by Larry Diamond

HOW AMERICA LOST IRAQ

by Aaron Glantz

IMPERIAL HUBRIS: WHY THE WEST IS LOSING THE WAR ON TERROR

by Michael Scheuer

Such pessimism is shortsighted in my view, but to be fair, it is understandable. The third anniversary of the liberation of Baghdad in April 2006 was, after all, marked not by a full withdrawal of U.S. forces but by a ferocious insurgency launching wave upon wave of suicide bombings. Vehicles were being blown up regularly by roadside bombs. American casualties were rising. Iraqi civilian casualties were rising. Iraq seemed to be teetering on the edge of civil war, and calls by American politicians and editorial boards to withdraw our forces and let the Iraqis take care of the mess themselves were increasing.

But those who argue that Iraq’s liberation will not succeed in bringing about a season of stability and prosperity are making the mistake of viewing current events through only political and economic lenses. As such, they are unable to see the big picture. For when one views Iraq’s future through the third lens of Scripture, a much different picture emerges.

IRAQ THROUGH THE THIRD LENS

The truth is that Iraq will form a strong, stable, and decisive central government. Iraq’s military and internal security forces will be well trained, well equipped, and increasingly effective. The insurgency will be crushed, support for it will evaporate, and foreign terrorists will stop flowing into the country.

As the situation stabilizes, Iraqi roads and airports will become safe, and people will finally be able to move freely about the country. Tourists will pour in to visit the country’s many ancient archeological sites and national treasures. Business leaders will also pour into the country, as will foreign investment, particularly to get Iraq’s oil fields, refineries, and shipping facilities up to twenty-first-century standards.

In short order, Iraq will emerge as an oil superpower, rivaling Saudi Arabia. Trillions of petrodollars will flood into the country, and as this happens, Iraq will become a magnet for banks and multinational corporations that will set up their regional and international headquarters in the country.

High-rise office buildings, luxury apartments, and single-family homes will be constructed. Theaters, concert halls, parks, and malls will be built. The ancient city of Babylon will emerge virtually overnight like a phoenix rising from the ashes to become one of the modern wonders of the world.

As I described in The Last Days, The Ezekiel Option, and most recently The Copper Scroll, Iraq is about to see a political and economic renaissance unparalleled in the history of the world. The people of Iraq are about to experience a level of personal and national wealth and power they have never dreamed possible. The pundits who have written the country off to failure and chaos will be absolutely stunned by such a dramatic turn of events, much as those who said the Berlin wall would never come down and the Soviet empire would never collapse found themselves scratching their heads in disbelief just a few years later.

How can I be so sure? By looking at Iraq through the third lens and analyzing the advance intelligence the Bible provides.

Iraq is described by the Hebrew prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel, as well as by the apostle John in the book of Revelation, as a center of unprecedented wealth and power in the last days before the return of Christ. The city of Babylon not only literally comes back from the dead in the last days, but the writers of Scripture portray her as Iraq’s future capital. In Revelation 18, Babylon is described as a “great city” and a center of “extravagant luxury.”

Iraq is described as one of the world’s great commercial hubs, where “the merchants of the world” come to trade “great quantities of gold, silver, jewels, and pearls,” along with all kinds of other “expensive” goods and services that entice “the kings of the world” and draw ships from everywhere on the planet (Revelation 18:9-12). When the people of the world think about the great wealth of Iraq’s future capital, they will ask themselves and each other, “Where is there another city as great as this?” (Revelation 18:18).

To be sure, we also learn from the book of Revelation that Iraq will eventually become a center of great evil as well and will one day face a judgment similar to the War of Gog and Magog. But the Scriptures are clear: before that, Iraq will be rich and powerful.

What’s more, the judgment of Russia, Iran, and other Middle Eastern countries will work to Iraq’s advantage. Oil and gas exports from those countries will be slowed or halted altogether because of the terrible destruction described by Ezekiel. Iraq, meanwhile, as one of the few Middle Eastern countries not having participated in the attack on Israel, will be one of the few oil powers (besides Israel) left intact when the smoke clears. As oil and gas prices skyrocket due to severe shortages, the world will become increasingly dependent upon Iraq for energy, and money will pour into the country’s coffers like never before.

But first, Iraq must become stable, peaceful, and free. Only then can the physical and financial infrastructure for such explosive growth be set into place. Only then will international oil companies invest heavily in refurbishing Iraq’s drilling, refining, and export equipment and facilities. Only then will the merchants of the world begin establishing headquarters in Iraq and dramatically increasing the level of trade done in and through Iraq. What’s remarkable is that those who are watching carefully can see the early stages of such developments happening right now.

A MODERN-DAY DANIEL

Few people are more qualified to talk about the future of his country than Iraqi general Georges Sada, for he knows firsthand how far his people have come already.

Now in his sixties, Sada has served as the chief spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister and as a senior advisor to the Iraqi president, and he was one of the chief architects of the new Iraqi military. But he was once Iraq’s top fighter pilot, his country’s air vice-marshal, and a top military advisor to Saddam Hussein—a role he did not seek and one that almost cost him his life.

In November 1990—only two months before U.S. and coalition forces liberated Kuwait—Saddam ordered Sada and his colleagues to plan a massive attack against Israel using every plane in the Iraqi air force. If the U.S. dared to attack Iraq, Saddam vowed, then he would order a retaliatory strike against Israel that would involve dropping chemical weapons on Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and other Israeli population centers, killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of Israelis.

Sada was horrified. As a devout evangelical Christian working for a ferociously anti-Christian regime, he had refused to join the Baath Party and was deeply pained to see what Saddam was doing to his beloved country. Yet, remarkably, he had been promoted through the ranks anyway, partly because of his flying ability and leadership skills, partly because of his reputation for telling his superiors the truth no matter what the consequences, and partly because Saddam did not see him as a direct and personal threat to him and his regime.

Now Sada faced the most difficult moment of his life. If he expressed even doubt—much less opposition—to the plan, he could be signing his own death warrant. But how could he keep silent? He abhorred the thought of annihilating Jews. In his eyes, the Jews were God’s chosen people and the authors of the Scriptures he had loved since growing up in the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh (modern-day Mosul). What’s more, he knew that since most of Iraq’s bombers and fighter jets would no doubt be shot down before entering Israeli airspace, most of Iraq’s chemical-weapon-laden bombs would likely land on Jordan and Syria, killing thousands if not millions of Iraq’s neighbors.

So when Saddam asked for his counsel, Sada said a silent prayer asking God for mercy, braced himself for the worst, and refused to support the plan. In fact, in front of at least ninety other senior military officers, he actually sought to dissuade Saddam from attacking Israel by launching into a highly technical description of Israel’s air-defense systems and the enormous challenges Iraqi pilots would have going up against superior technology and training. His presentation lasted an hour and forty-one minutes, and when it was over, the room was dead silent.

Not many men disagreed with Saddam and lived to tell about it. Several of Sada’s colleagues told him later that they had been certain he was going to be executed on the spot. But by God’s grace, he survived. So, of course, did Israel.

On December 17, 1990, Saddam did, in fact, sign the order for the massive chemical-weapons attack against the Jewish state if the U.S. attacked Iraq first. But when the Gulf War began on the night of January 16, 1991, American and coalition forces destroyed Iraq’s air force so quickly that Saddam never had the chance to implement his order.

I first heard about Sada while living in Cairo, working on this book. Sada’s memoir, Saddam’s Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied and Survived Saddam Hussein, had just been released in the U.S., and a friend had e-mailed me to suggest that I read it as soon as possible.

When I got back to the States, I read Sada’s book in a single day and tracked him down for an interview. What I found was a man who understands both his country’s past and its future far better than any American journalist or politician, because he has been at the center of events there for decades and has viewed them all through the third lens of Scripture. In my view, Sada is a modern-day Daniel, a man of faith and prayer whom God used to speak truth to a modern-day Nebuchadnezzar.

IRAQ’S NEW RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

In his book Sada describes working with Iraq’s new civilian leadership in Baghdad to help plan their nation’s recovery from the Saddam era. He also describes his meetings in Washington with various high-ranking White House, State Department, and Pentagon officials. It is all interesting and important material, but when I interviewed Sada, one of the first things I wanted to know was what it was like to stand before Saddam Hussein and actually hear him say, “Georges, I’ve decided that the air force will attack Israel and wipe her out with chemical weapons.”

“I was thinking of it in two ways,” he told me. “One, as a Christian, as a believer. Second, as a national officer that belonged to the Iraqi forces. . . . As a Christian, I could not accept [this order] to send two waves of fighters to attack Israel, one wave through Jordan and one through Syria. I knew the capabilities of the Israeli air force and their air defenses and their plans to destroy all aircraft coming from the east before entering the Israeli borders. So this means the bombs were [mostly] going to drop on Jordan and Syria. . . . But with ninety-eight aircraft, some of them would still penetrate to Israel. Just imagine as a Christian [the deaths that would result] as all three countries were going to be hit by chemicals.”259

Sada could not bear the thought of having to stand before Jesus Christ on the Day of Judgment with such a sin on his conscience. Nor could he bear to see the destruction that would be unleashed upon his own people if Saddam’s plan was successful.

What’s more, “as a tactical general and a strategist, I also knew the Israelis would have the right to retaliate with nuclear weapons and they would destroy our big cities like Baghdad, Mosul, Basra, and the others. So what was the benefit of doing this?”

“What gave you the courage to try to dissuade Saddam?” I asked.

“Believe me, only Jesus. Only. I know how brave I am. I am not a coward. But to be that brave—to put your life in front of Saddam—he could shoot you at any second—there were some people who said, ‘Georges is finished. Today his head is gone’ . . . but you see, it was Jesus who gave me the courage.”

Twelve years later, it was Saddam Hussein, not Sada, who was finished.

American and coalition forces liberated Baghdad on April 9, 2003. Iraqis cheered in the streets in those heady first days. They sang and danced and wept as they tore down the forty-foot statue of Saddam in Fardus Square.

Sada described for me the scene as he returned to Baghdad on May 8, 2003, and entered Saddam’s main palace a few days later. The multimillion-dollar gold-and-marble compound no longer had any doors or windows. Everything was covered in dust. These hallways had been ground zero of the republic of fear only weeks before. But now here he was, a free man, walking around in a free country.

Slowly, cautiously, Sada entered Saddam’s throne room. It took a few moments to grasp the enormity of what he was seeing, or rather not seeing. Saddam was not there. Saddam’s sons were not there. Saddam’s henchmen were not there. They ruled no longer. They could issue their evil, murderous decrees no longer. Iraq was free. Yes, troubles and trials lay ahead. Yes, life would be very hard for some time to come. But the Butcher of Baghdad was gone. And Sada told me that when that truth sunk in, he began to weep.

Before long, at Sada’s urging, Saddam’s throne room was being used for evangelical church services. In the very room where just a few months earlier Saddam had ordered Iraqis to their deaths, Christians were now gathering to worship the name of Jesus. What could be more fitting, Sada thought, than to turn Saddam’s house of evil into a house of God?

“Did you ever imagine when you were in a meeting with Saddam Hussein that one day you would actually be worshipping Jesus in that very room?” I asked him.

“No, no,” he said, laughing like a man from whom a great burden has been lifted. “I would never have dreamt that.”

And yet it happened.

Religious freedom has come to Iraq for the first time in centuries. New churches are opening. Bibles are being printed. Muslims are converting to Christianity in record numbers. And nominal Christians are experiencing a spiritual revival, becoming excited about their faith in a way that Sada and other evangelical leaders I have spoken with have never seen before.

I will describe this in more detail in chapter 14 and put it in the context of the evangelical revolution that is sweeping through the post-9/11 Middle East. But for now it is important to note that this newfound religious freedom is a significant part of why Sada and many of his colleagues are hopeful about their country’s prospects. They have come so far so fast from the dark days of Saddam that, unlike the naysayers in the West, they have no doubt even more dramatic and positive changes are coming.

A NATIONAL CONVERSATION

“I am a man who is very, very optimistic about the future of Iraq,” Sada says with a sense of passion that is at once believable and contagious.

Newfound religious freedom is part of the answer. So, too, is the new political freedom Iraqis are experiencing for the first time in their lives. Despite the violence of the insurgency, each new round of elections has drawn more Iraqis to the polls than the one before. In January 2005, 8.5 million citizens voted—58 percent of all those eligible to do so. By October of that year, turnout had climbed to 9.8 million Iraqis—63 percent of all eligible voters. And by December, more than 12 million Iraqis came out to the polls, a stunning 77 percent of all those eligible.260

What’s more, turnout has increased dramatically even in provinces racked by violence and those where large numbers of Sunni Muslims live, many of whom have been either wary of participating in the political process or outright hostile to doing so.

Does this mean that voters in these provinces are satisfied with the results of the elections? Not necessarily. But it does mean that they are beginning to see the electoral process as a way to achieve their personal and political objectives, and this is a very hopeful sign.

The fact is, a national conversation is under way inside the country. Iraqis now have the freedom to think, to speak their minds, and to discuss and debate ideas unlike ever before. And despite the severe violence in the streets of some provinces, the conversation has not stopped. It has only intensified.

“There is a great, dramatic change if we compare it with the Saddam Hussein regime,” Sada told me. “Whatever happens now, it will still be much, much better than that. Because now if you have fifty people killed, you have tremendous reaction of newspapers, TV channels. Everybody will speak [about their deaths]. But in the time of Saddam, if he will kill 5,000 people, nobody will know. They will be killed and they will be taken to a mass grave. This will not happen in Iraq anymore. . . . We have many newspapers, many radios, many TVs, everybody has got a [satellite] dish, everybody is watching everything, and this was impossible at the time of Saddam.”

THE NEW IRAQI ECONOMY

Yet another reason for optimism is the fact that Iraq’s new economy has nearly doubled since liberation and is already beginning to attract some of the largest companies in the world that increasingly believe the country has a very prosperous future.

In April of 2006 I had the privilege of having lunch with Ali Abdul Ameer Allawi, Iraq’s finance minister, and Dr. Sinan Al-Shabibi, the governor of Iraq’s Central Bank. They had come to Washington to explain to journalists and policy makers the impressive untold story of Iraq’s rapidly expanding economy.

“We are talking about the restructuring of an entire country,” Minister Allawi told me. “We’re doing it in an atmosphere of violence. . . . But Iraq is moving. It’s growing. And once the security situation settles down, it is poised to have enormous economic growth. There are a lot of pent-up energies ready to be released.”261

Dr. Al-Shabibi heartily agreed. “We are making a transition from a war economy to a peace economy. We’re making a transition from a dictatorship to a democracy, and from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. It will take time. But we are already making real progress.”262

Sure enough, after declining by two-thirds after the invasion of Kuwait, the country’s economy surged from $18.9 billion in 2002 to $33.1 billion in 2005. In 2006, growth has been expected to hit 10.4 percent. It has been projected to surge by 15.5 percent in 2007. The new Iraqi dinar is stable, and annual inflation has dropped from 32 percent to around 10 percent today.²⁶³

Such a trajectory is catching the eye of corporate executives around the globe. Visa proved it really is “everywhere you want to be” when it opened for business in Iraq in June 2003. The credit-card company was the first to process payments in Iraq since economic sanctions were imposed.²⁶⁴

FedEx began door-to-door pickup and delivery in Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul in August of 2003. A press release noted that “the company’s role as one of the world’s leading drivers of international trade and growth will be a significant asset to Iraq and its business community as the country works towards rebuilding its infrastructure and economy. Access to the FedEx Express international network also helps facilitate the transportation of humanitarian aid into the country, including working with Water Missions International and International Aid.”²⁶⁵

Hamdi Osman, FedEx’s regional vice president, said, “Iraq has the potential to be one of the fastest growing economies. There is no question that the country faces a tough business climate, but nothing that can’t be overcome.”

Coca-Cola began joint venture talks with several Iraqi bottling companies in November 2003, eventually striking a deal and launching a new front in the cola wars against Pepsi, their biggest rival. Coke had been exiled from Iraq for thirty-seven years for choosing to do business in Israel and thus facing Saddam’s anti-Zionist wrath.²⁶⁶

In December 2003, Iraq’s previous finance minister, Kamel al-Gailani, wrote an essay for the Wall Street Journal entitled “Iraq: Open for Business!” He noted that foreign companies operating in Iraq are now finally permitted to have “direct ownership, joint ventures, or branches as they see fit. We will guarantee equality of legal standing for all foreign firms as well as full and immediate remittance of profits, dividends, interest, and royalties. The investment process will be quick and clear with no bureaucratic hurdles to get in the way.”267

Since then, hundreds of foreign companies, including General Electric, General Motors, Nokia, Lucent Technologies, Motorola, and Canon, have entered Iraq.

What’s more, some 33,000 new Iraqi businesses have been registered, and about 1.5 million Iraqis have been employed to build or rebuild schools, health clinics, police stations, roads, bridges, and numerous other infrastructure projects.²⁶⁸ A U.S. government report to Congress in the spring of 2006 noted that “over 20,000 microfinance loans with a value of $44 million have been disbursed to small entrepreneurs creating an estimated 30,000 jobs” and “over 2,400 businessmen and women have taken advantage of training programs for small and medium sized enterprises.”²⁶⁹ The report also noted that “countries other than the U.S. have pledged some $13.5 billion worth of support to Iraq.”

Iraq’s oil industry, meanwhile, is slowly coming back on line and holds tremendous promise for the country’s future. Iraq is currently producing about 2.1 million barrels a day and is exporting an average of 1.5 million barrels a day, says Finance Minister Allawi.²⁷⁰ More than 350 pipelines have been repaired since the end of major combat operations, and U.S. officials report that Iraqi oil revenues have climbed from $5.1 billion in 2003 to an impressive $24.5 billion in 2005.²⁷¹

But, again, this is only the beginning. Minister Allawi notes that while Iraq currently has the second-largest reserves of oil in the region, behind the Saudis, the country still has not discovered all of its reserves and desperately needs new oil rigs and production facilities to maximize production. “Our technology is not much better than Soviet era,” Allawi told me. “We can do much better.”

Allawi conservatively estimates that Iraq will be exporting 3 million barrels of oil a day within the next few years. But he and Central Bank governor Al-Shabibi also told me that a new internal Iraqi study found that by 2010, Iraq could be exporting 6 million barrels a day.

Western oil executives and energy experts I consulted for this book concurred with this assessment. A Congressional Research Service study found that “only 17 of 80 [Iraqi] oil fields have been developed” and that “Iraq could potentially produce far more oil than has been realized in its history. Given a stable security situation, very large amounts of capital investment, and the involvement of one or more large oil companies, it would be realistic to suggest potential output ramping up to 5 or 6 million barrels per day over the period of several years.”272

After a speech I delivered at an executive conference in 2005, the vice president of a large North American oil company told me that he had just finished reading The Last Days and wanted to tell me I was significantly understating the oil wealth that Iraq would soon find. While Iraq was currently believed to possess about 115 billion barrels of oil reserves, he said, Saddam’s reign of terror and more than a decade of UN economic sanctions meant that it had been years since anyone had done a serious survey of the country’s oil wealth using the latest geological mapping techniques and technology. Once the violence settles down and companies like his can safely rebuild Iraq’s wells and do more exploration, he and his colleagues are sure Iraq’s proven reserves will be found to be much higher.

“We’re already sending in survey teams,” he told me. “We’re building alliances in the government and with local leaders. We’re ready to move in and make a major investment in Iraq, as soon as the violence settles down. And we’re not alone.”²⁷³

INSIDE THE NEW IRAQI MILITARY

The question is, how soon will things settle down in Iraq?

General Sada hesitates to make a hard-and-fast prediction. He concedes that at times his country seems “close to civil war,” and he does not rule out the possibility of such a war erupting. But he is convinced that in ten years or less, Iraq will be quiet, stable, and immensely prosperous, and he personally believes it will be much sooner than that.

The key, he says, is getting the new Iraqi military recruited, trained, equipped, and combat ready. It’s a project he has been working on from the moment he returned to his newly liberated country. “In May 2003, I told [American general] Garner, ‘Let us Iraqis start taking [charge of] the internal security. Because you have done a great job in battle. You have removed the regime of Saddam. Now let us take the responsibility of the security.”

The U.S. originally envisioned only three Iraqi army divisions—one in the north, one in the center, and one in the south. Sada did not think this was nearly enough to crush the insurgency or to keep Iraq safe from Iran or other potentially hostile neighbors. He recommended nine divisions, with reserves of about 150,000 men. As the violence of the insurgency intensified, Sada increased his original recommendation to eleven divisions, and U.S. officials eventually realized that he and his Iraqi military colleagues were right. Later, it was decided to create a new counterterrorism division as well, bringing the total number to twelve Iraqi divisions. Each is now comprised of about 12,000 men, for a total of about 160,000 men in the Iraqi armed forces, separate from police and internal security forces.

“Twelve divisions are already functioning,” Sada says. “Half of them are well-trained by the Americans. The Americans are doing a great job training the others, and I am sure that soon all the Iraqi army will be well-trained.”

As this increasingly battle-hardened force matures, Sada says Iraqis will be able to take charge of their own security and allow American and coalition forces to go home. He also says the new Iraqi military is being trained solely for defense purposes and will have no territorial or ideological designs on neighboring countries as in the past, even vis-à-vis Israel.

“From the early beginning when I was forming the forces,” Sada insists, “the principle was to build these forces on the basis of freedom and democracy, and [that] these forces should be not trained in a way to do violence in the region and for the world. . . . The nature of the forces will be defensive, not offensive.”

As much as I respect General Sada, I have to disagree with him on those last comments. I have no doubt he and others are training Iraq’s new military for defense-only operations. But the Scriptures are clear that Iraq will one day be the headquarters for the Antichrist, a dictator who will wield unprecedented global authority and will set up his power base in the city of Babylon. We know, therefore, that while Iraqi forces today are being trained by U.S. and NATO commanders—the best in the world—and outfitted with the latest state-of-the-art military gear, someday such forces will be drafted into a final showdown with Israel at Armageddon and ultimately with God himself.

Some Christians I know have asked if the effort to liberate and rebuild Iraq is worth it, knowing the evil that lies ahead. In other words, are all our blood, toil, tears, and sweat making Iraq safe for democracy or safe for the Antichrist?

The answer, honestly, is both. But yes, I believe it’s worth it. After all, the Iraqi people desperately need a time of religious, political, and economic freedom, even if it is only for a season. They deserve the opportunity to think and read and debate and travel. They should also have the opportunity to hear the good news of God’s love for them and the way of salvation offered to them through Jesus Christ. Followers of Christ outside of Iraq need the opportunity to get the gospel inside and to strengthen the faith of our brothers and sisters there—especially if a greater evil is rising.

Think of it this way: Ronald Reagan believed that after the collapse of the Evil Empire, another evil dictator—Gog—would one day arise. But that did not stop Reagan from pursuing the collapse of the Soviet Union and the tearing down of the Berlin wall. Why? Because he saw the future of that part of the world through the third lens of Scripture. He knew what was coming, but he didn’t know when. So he wanted the Russian people to taste freedom, if only for a time. He wanted them to have an opportunity to hear the gospel and respond before prophetic events overwhelmed them.

In Russia’s case, it has been a decade and a half since the demise of the USSR. We don’t know when the window of freedom in Russia will fully close, but it is certainly closing now. Likewise, we don’t know how long a window we will have in the new Iraq, but we should make the most of every opportunity while we can.

BABYLON RISING

Those who do not view world events through the third lens of Scripture will, understandably, have a difficult time imagining a season of peace and prosperity emerging in Iraq. They will also have a difficult time imagining the rebuilding of the ancient Iraqi city of Babylon, at least on the scale described in the Left Behind series or my novels.

Former Republican strategist turned best-selling author Kevin Phillips is one such skeptic among many. “Evil Babylon, the antithesis of Jerusalem, the good city, prompted its own literature in the 1990s, and [Tim] LaHaye’s tens of millions of readers praised his series as making the Bible and its supposed predictions ‘come alive,’” sniped Phillips, citing like-minded authors mocking “prophecy believers” who accept the biblical view that Babylon will one day actually be rebuilt “on its ancient ruins.”274

Historically, such cynicism has been understandable. For nearly two thousand years, the city of Babylon, located about sixty kilometers south of Baghdad, has been all but extinct. This has led to speculation that the Babylon described in the book of Revelation actually refers to New York or Washington or Rome or Moscow. How could it refer to an Iraqi city that doesn’t exist?

Except that now it does.

“More than 2,500 years ago, a fabulous city rose here on a bend in the Euphrates River,” wrote New York Times correspondent John Burns in the fall of 1990. “Under King Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon and its hanging gardens became as fabled, and as much a seat of imperial power, as Rome became later. Under President Saddam Hussein, one of the ancient world’s most legendary cities has begun to rise again.”²⁷⁵

Burns explained that Saddam had invested millions of dollars to build replicas of Nebuchadnezzar’s buildings—including palaces and throne rooms—“on the original sites.” He described Saddam’s efforts to rebuild the city’s roads, lakes, canals, and bridges, and even to build new museums, souvenir shops, and fast-food restaurants. And he reported that Saddam had offered “a $1.5 million reward to anybody who can produce a satisfactory plan for rebuilding the Hanging Gardens.”

The article didn’t even make the paper’s front page. It was buried on page 13 of the A section. But to me, as well as to millions of evangelical Christians who believe in Bible prophecy, it was hugely significant.

The following year Charles Dyer, senior VP at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, published The Rise of Babylon: Sign of the End Times. In it he described his experience attending an international festival held in Babylon in 1987 and provided even more firsthand details of the efforts of the Iraqi government to make the ancient city a symbol of the country’s future.276

Both Burns and Dyer noted that construction in Babylon had stalled after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait because Saddam ran out of cash. But what was so significant about these and similar reports over the next few years was that they provided fresh evidence that a Bible prophecy so difficult for so many to believe for so long—a prophecy concerning the resurrection of an entire ancient city to modern power and prosperity—was actually beginning to come to pass. They also strongly suggested that when Iraq is flush with new petrodollars, Babylon will rise even more rapidly.

That day may be sooner than most people think.

On April 18, 2006, the New York Times reported in a front-page story that “Babylon, the mud-brick city with the million-dollar name, has paid the price of war. It has been ransacked, looted, torn up, paved over, neglected and roughly occupied. . . . But Iraqi leaders and United Nations officials are not giving up on it. They are working assiduously to restore Babylon, home to one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and turn it into a cultural center and possibly even an Iraqi theme park.” The mayor of the area says that, “God willing,” they will even build a Holiday Inn.²⁷⁷

“The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is pumping millions of dollars into protecting and restoring Babylon and a handful of other ancient ruins in Iraq,” noted correspondent Jeffrey Gettleman. “UNESCO has even printed up a snazzy brochure, with Babylon listed as the premier destination, to hand out to wealthy donors.”

“Cultural tourism could become Iraq’s second biggest industry, after oil,” said Philippe Delanghe, a United Nations official helping with the project.

Gettleman noted, “What makes the project even conceivable is that the area around Babylon is one of the safest in Iraq, a beacon of civilization, once again, in a land of chaos.”

“One day millions of people will visit Babylon,” said Donny George, head of Iraq’s board of antiquities. “I’m just not sure anybody knows when.”

I asked Iraqi finance minister Allawi about this project when I met with him in Washington a few days after the article was published. He loved the idea of rebuilding Babylon—anything to attract investors and their capital and get the Iraqi economy growing again.

“Cultural, religious, archeological, and biblical tourism is a big opportunity for Iraq,” he told me. “I think rebuilding Babylon is a wonderful idea, as long as it is not done at the expense of the antiquities themselves.” Then he added, “I don’t know about a theme park, though—maybe, as long as it’s done outside of Babylon, away from the archeological sites.”278

It all sounded so natural, but what Minister Allawi was telling me was really quite historic. The highest levels of the new Iraqi government want to rebuild the ancient city of Babylon and make it a great center of commerce. The Hebrew prophets and the book of Revelation told us it was going to happen. Now it really is.

That said, people like General Sada and his fellow Christians in Iraq have little time to think about the prophetic implications of their work at the moment. They are solely focused on making Iraq secure, creating jobs and economic opportunities, and getting the gospel of Jesus Christ to every Iraqi who is willing to listen.

“What’s going to happen in the future?” Sada asks. “I am a man who believes in God’s promises 100 percent. I believe what’s in the Bible. Those [prophecies] will happen whether somebody will like it or not like it. . . . We believers see what is happening [in Iraq today], and the first thing that comes to our heads is that we are living in the last days. But how God thinks—his ways and his methods and his thoughts—are not like our own. It is very difficult for a human being to know and understand the thoughts and the ways of God. The most important thing is to believe in the [prophecies] that are going to happen.”