Iraqi elections pushed back to March 7th

"Intense bickering among Iraq's rival political factions has delayed national elections", according to a Reuters report by Adam Entous published today, Dec. 10, 2009. The vote was scheduled for January 16th, before a major al Qaeda bomb attack in Baghdad on Dec. 8th killed 112.

Despite the election delay, the January 16th, 2010 date may remain significant in that it is exactly 1,113 days from the execution of Saddam Hussein. His execution date was also exactly 1,113 days from the date of his capture, both events being major judgment markers in the string of judgments pronounced upon the "land of the Chaldeans" by the prophet Jeremiah in the bible (Jeremiah chapters 50 and 51).

"Babylon" -- the land of "Chaldea" -- is to suffer nine distinct judgments on its path to utter desolation, according to Jeremiah's vision: 1. Military invasion by "a great nation and many kings... aroused from the remote parts of the earth" (Jer. 50:41), 2. Capture (Jer. 51:31), 3. Punishment of "the arrogant one (who will) stumble and fall" (Jer. 50:31-32), 4. Burning of the cities (Jer. 50:32), 5. Abandonment (Jer. 51:9), 6. Civil war with and defeat by the Kurds (Jer. 50:9, 51:11, 27-28), 7. Plundering (Jer. 50:10,37), 8. Flood (Jer. 51:42), and 9. Drought (Jer. 51:36, 43), so that she finally becomes "a desolation without inhabitants... a parched land and a desert, a land in which no man lives" (Jer. 51:29, 43).

Judgments 1, 2 and 3 of the prophecy have already occurred, bolstered by a number of ancillary, descriptive prophetic details Jeremiah provided that have also come true in the course of their fulfillment. We await the 4th judgment, of which God says through Jeremiah, "I shall set fire to (the arrogant one's) cities , and it will devour all his environs."