Iraq faces decades of sand storms

Reuters Baghdad reporter Aseel Kami today relayed Iraqi Deputy Environment Minister Kamal Latif's warning that, "despite efforts to restore the marshes, Iraq was likely to suffer from dusty weather for a majority of days over the next decade."

The June 21, 2012 article at reuters.com reported that "sandstorms started to increase and become more severe after the wetlands were dried out by Saddam's government in the 1990s to flush out rebels living there."

"I expect we will reach 300 days of dusty and stormy weather per year during the coming 10 years if the circumstances stay as they are," Latif is quoted as saying. "Three-hundred days a year means a catastrophe for the economy and human health."

The current situation could be but a harbinger of the greater calamity foreseen by Jeremiah the prophet, following invasion, capture, punishment, burning, abandonment, civil war, plundering and a horrific flood event -- "Chaldea... will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a parched land, and a desert... She will be completely desolate; everyone who passes by Babylon will be horrified..." (Jer 50:12-13).

The curse of a "drought on her waters" (Jer 50:38) so that "her cities... become an object of horror, a parched land and a desert" (Jer 51:42), rendering the land of Babylon "a perpetual desolation" (Jer 51:62), is the final judgment decreed upon the land of the Chaldeans, the land of Babylon, as a "vengeance of the Lord" (Jer 50:15).

Is the present "dusty weather" -- a result of an "increase in temperature and lack of rain" according to Latif -- just a taste of the coming disaster?

Nine judgments were pronounced upon the land of Babylon: invasion by a great nation and many kings, humiliating capture and occupation, punishment of the "arrogant one", burning of the cities, abandonment by the reconstruction forces, defeat in a civil war with the Medes, plundering of her treasures by the conquering armies, a catastrophic flood event and the final desolation brought on by unrelenting drought.

The first three have occurred in order. Will the cities burn and the reconstructionists abandon Babylon? If both occur, look for war with the Medes (Kurds), defeat and plunder, flood and drought. Fulfillment of a 2,600 year old prophecy.