STAND FIRM: Understanding Syria Is to Understand Sykes-Picot — and Maybe the Eighth Beast

      In my last article, I wrote about the flare-up of Syria’s 13-year-long civil war and the looming threat of Damascus falling. I shared how some were looking at the fall of Damascus as a fulfillment of Isaiah 17:1. I don’t see it that way — not as a complete fulfillment, at least. But now, as I write this, Damascus has fallen. Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, has fled and is believed to be in Moscow. With the many factions in Syria’s war, it’s difficult to know who holds power, but Turkey is clearly leading the charge for control of the nation.

      Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has made it clear his goal is to restore Turkey’s glory days — those of the Ottoman Empire. Gaining control of Syria is a significant step in that process. The Ottoman Empire isn’t something most Americans know much about — I certainly didn’t. But understanding that empire and its fall is essential to grasping everything happening in the Middle East today, especially Syria’s civil war.

      Before World War I, Turkey wasn’t the modern nation-state we know today. It was the heart of the Ottoman Empire, a vast and powerful realm that ruled much of the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Europe for centuries. The Ottomans governed under Islamic law, uniting the Muslim world under the leadership of a caliph — a political and spiritual successor to the Prophet Muhammad.

      However, the Ottoman Empire fell apart after World War I, having sided with the Central Powers, and ended up on the losing side. The Allied powers dismantled the empire, and by 1924, the caliphate was formally dissolved as Turkey became a secular republic.

      The empire’s fall left the Middle East fractured. The Sykes-Picot Agreement, a secret deal between Britain and France, divided up Ottoman lands into artificial nations, ignoring the ethnic, tribal and religious realities of the region. These arbitrary borders forced antagonistic groups together while separating others, laying the groundwork for decades of conflict.

      The new nations often relied on strong leaders to hold their boundaries together. Western powers, including the United States, supported many of these dictators because they maintained peace — Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Bashar al-Assad in Syria are just a few examples.

      The fall of Hussein in 2003 and the Arab Spring in 2011 destabilized the region further, toppling some of these strongmen and fueling unrest. The Syrian civil war, which erupted during the Arab Spring, has its roots in this long history of division and instability.

      One of the recurring themes in this chaos is the dream of reviving the caliphate. Groups like ISIS have explicitly sought to reestablish a united Islamic state, while nations like Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia each have their own aspirations of leading such a movement. Erdoğan’s interest in Syria is tied directly to these ambitions.

      To understand Syria’s ongoing conflict, we must understand the consequences of Sykes-Picot. But I believe there’s an even bigger picture. The story of the Ottoman Empire, its fall and the artificial nations created by Sykes-Picot may also help us understand the seventh and eighth beasts described in Revelation 17.

      In Revelation 17, the Apostle John describes a vision of kingdoms tied to Jerusalem’s history. Five have fallen, one existed in his time (Rome), and another would come for a while before disappearing, only to return as the Beast Empire, the kingdom of the Antichrist. Here’s how Rev. 17:10-11 (NIV) puts it: “They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while. The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction.”

      Could the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Jerusalem and then fell, only to resurface in today’s events, be connected to this prophecy? While we can’t know for certain, it’s worth considering how history, prophecy and current events might converge.