Why Russia Will Not Attack America - Church of God - NEO

•JTubla. Josephus calls them theMoschevi and Thobelites.The descendants of Meshech(Moskhi) ultimately traveled intothe lands north of the Black Sea,settling around Moscow. They gavetheir name to that city, as well asto the Moskva River and the stateof Muscovy.Part of Tubal also moved north,giving their name to the river Toboland founding theSiberian city of Tobolsk.(Mongoloid branches ofTubal are found in Tibet,Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, theScenes in turbulent SouthAsia:ofcommunist New People'sarmy train in remotearea of the Philippines(top); Muslimopposing Soviets inAfghanistan pose withcaptured Soviet armoredvehicle (middle); Iraqitroops guard Iranianprisoners taken insix-year-old Iran-Iraqwar (below).Indian state of N agaland, Xinkiangor Chinese Turkestan, and parts ofnorthern China and Manchuria, accordingto Arabic sources.)Together, the Caucasianbranches of Meshech and Tubalform the two distinctive branchesof the Great Russians of today.The Great Russians are the largestethnic group of the Soviet Union.Future Russo / China Alliance?Ultimately allied with the Russiansunder Gog will be "many people"(Ezek. 38:6,9,15). These couldhardly exclude the militarilyweaker Chinese and their Asiatickinsmenthose eastern Magogiteswho "dwell securely in the coast-•lands" of the Pacific (39:6, TheAmplified Bible).The People's Republic ofChina the "many people" ofEzekiel 38is thus pictured as beinglinked with Gog in the lastdays. We can conclude that, oneway or another, the breach thatseparates the Soviet Union andChina will eventually be bridged.Beijing and Moscow will yet cometo terms in spite of racial and politicaltensions!Linked with the Russians andthe other nations of the Orient inthe vast end-time Asian confederacywill be Persia, Cush, Phut,Gomer and Togarmah (Ezek. 38:5-6). Who are these peoples today?History and Scripture identifythem as the very peoples of theSouth Asian region. Willingly orunwillingly, they will all be• drawn into the Soviet sphere ofinfluence in the years justahead! Let us look at each oneindividually.Let us begin with Persia(Ezek. 38:5), the most easilyidentified. Persia is simply anothername for modern-dayIran.The name Persia originatedfrom a geographical regionwithin southern Iran. This regionwas anciently known asPersis, the Greek form of OldPersian Parsa. Historically, thepeople of Iran have never usedthe name Persia for their country.They have always called itIran, "Land of the Aryans."(Aryan is used to designatespeakers of Indo-Iranian languages,as distinct from SemiticspeakingArabs, for example.) Thename Iran, however, did not comeinto widespread use in the westuntil the 1930s.Iran today has a population ofsome 45 million. Iranians comprisenearly 70 percent of the country.Iranians, though Islamic, are totallydistinct from the neighboringArab peoples of the Middle East.They are a mixed people of theremnants of Media and Elam andother ancestors of Semitic andHamitic stock.Modern Iran also includes numerousminority groups of varyingethnic backgrounds: Turks, Kurds,Arabs, Baluchis, Armenians, Lurs,Azerbaijanis, Bakhtiaris and others.There is growing evidence of aSoviet attempt to utilize to theirown advantage disputes among certainof these ethnic minoritieswithin Iran. Some observers seethis activity as aimed at precipitatingan internal crisis a crisis thatcould provide an opportunity forSoviet military "intervention" inIran.An appeal for help by any pro­Soviet ethnic minorities in Irancould be answered by a movementof Soviet troops both from the SovietUnion across Iran's northernborder and from Afghanistanacross Iran's eastern border. Alternately,a pro-Soviet governmentmight ultimately rise to power inTehran and move the country intothe Soviet orbit by nonviolentmeans.Whatever the method, theprophecy of Ezekiel clearly indicatesthat Iran will eventually becomelinked with the Soviet Union.This is not to say that Iran or otherSouth Asian nations will be incorporatedinto the Soviet Union asfull-fledged republics. Rather,there will generally be only politicallinkage in the form of alliancesor as vassal states dominated byMoscow.Afghanistan, of course, is alreadyin the Soviet orbit. A Sovietinstalledregime today governs inKabul.Known anciently as Ariana andBactria, and in the Middle Ages asKhorasan, Afghanistan lies in thevery heart of Asia. Historically, thegreat invasions of the Indian subcontinenthave been made throughits strategic mountain passes.Afghanistan'S present raciallymixed population is a reflection ofits location astride the ancienttrade and invasion routes of Cen-11