The liberal German periodical Spiegel headlined an item in its Friday edition, “Germany Commits Troops for Post-2014 Mission.”

This should come as no surprise to our subscribers. We have long maintained that Germany would retain a military presence in Afghanistan as a counter to Iranian influence in the region.

According to Spiegel, the retention of up to 800 Bundeswehr personnel in Afghanistan, post 2014, “Though perhaps bold and symbolic … is also tactical in terms of upcoming elections.”

But it’s more than that. It is a tactical move by German elites to consolidate Germany’s military and intelligence presence on Iran’s eastern border. The continuing German presence in Afghanistan is necessary to maintain the perimeter of defense encircling Iran that Germany has carefully built up over recent years.

If you take a look at German military deployment in the region, you will note that the Bundeswehr, Luftwaffe, Bundesmarine and the German intelligence organization, the bnd, have a combined deployment from the Mediterranean, south to the coast of Lebanon, further south to the Horn of Africa and the Persian Gulf, to the east in Afghanistan and northeast in Uzbekistan. Add to this an increasing detachment of German troops to North Africa, and it is easy to see that, through these toeholds in the region, the German military literally has Iran surrounded.

Realizing this, the Trumpet has—notwithstanding publicity from Germany maintaining the contrary view up to now—always maintained that Germany, having established a presence in Afghanistan, will not leave.

Friday’s announcement confirms this view.

If we step back to gain the broader view, we see that U.S. withdrawal from Iraq has left that benighted nation at the mercy of Iran. To all intents and purposes, Iraq is speedily becoming a vassal state to Iran. This leaves Afghanistan as the only outpost remaining between Iran’s eastward expansion and its linkage with Islamic states even further to its east and south. It is thus crucial for those nations dependent on Middle Eastern and Caucasus oil supplies to arrest Iran’s expansionist goals at its eastern flank.

America’s progressive withdrawal from Afghanistan risks a repeat of the Iraqi episode, with that Eurasian nation falling under Iranian imperialist dominance.

Germany is determined not to let this occur.

Supplying the third-largest contingent of troops in the Afghan war, Germany has a most vital interest in restraining Iranian moves to secure vital oil supplies on which the EU nations are dependent in order to diversify supply away from the singular risky source of Russia. It is for this reason that we have consistently maintained that Germany cannot afford to leave Afghanistan in the wake of American drawdown.

A quick review of Germany’s strategic commitments in the region reveals that it has become increasingly situated to fill the gap created by U.S. withdrawal from this region. In fact, the militarily strategic deployment of the Bundeswehr to the Middle East and the Eurasian periphery is an indication of just how vital such a move is to Germany’s imperialist goals.

Via its quiet engagement in encircling the oil golden triangle in the Middle East—the German Navy being deployed in the Mediterranean, thus securing Suez, and patrolling off the coast of Lebanon securing the Levant, the German military in Sudan, the navy off the Somalian and Yemeni coastlines securing the Persian Gulf, and the military active in Afghanistan—Germany is in a prime position to present itself in the role of an in-area peacekeeper within this hottest spot on the planet.

Germany also, via strategic deployment in these localities, retains a prime bargaining position for access to Mideast oil as an offset to dependence on Russia. At the same time, it maintains an actively deployed strategic readiness to secure future Middle East oil assets and guarantee safe passage to the black gold via Suez and the Adriatic Sea—the one protected by German naval deployment securing the Mediterranean, the other by virtue of implicit alliances with Croatia and Albania, both being Germany’s Balkan proxies.

Thirdly—and soon to be most important of all—Germany’s extension of its deployment in Afghanistan guarantees it a prime strategic location from which to press the inevitable forthcoming attack on the one nation that threatens the overall stability of the Middle East and, through its terror-sponsoring activities, the rest of the world—Iran!

Germany’s ambivalence to any moral standard in the conduct of theaters vital to its national interest is readily shown in the strategy it has adopted in the Hindu Kush. In this situation, as in the Balkan Peninsula wars of the 1990s, it is not the moral argument so much as the strategic imperialist/military reason that dominates.

“To vanquish its enemy, Germany has regularly cooperated with forces which were powerful enough to win wars, but whose social qualities are diametrically opposed to a humane development in the region targeted by German interventions. This had been the case in Afghanistan in the 1980s when, within the framework of the Western alliance, the Federal Republic of Germany helped support the Afghan Mujahedeen fighting pro-Soviet forces in Kabul and the Soviet Army. The consequences are well known. … A similar outcome can be expected from Berlin’s current cooperation with Afghan warlords to maintain control at the Hindu Kush …. This brutalization of social relations corresponds to the logic of warfare, in as much as not the most humane, but the most barbaric forces are the more promising allies, who, in the long run, become the most influential forces shaping the future” (German-Foreign-Policy.com, Nov. 1, 2012).

This all having been said, there is one other vital aspect to Germany’s decision to not leave Afghanistan.

Germany has increasingly felt Islamic extremism, of which Iran is chief sponsor, pushing at its borders. Sooner or later it will have to react to counter this threat to its culture. Bible prophecy predicts that Germany will soon descend on Iran like a whirlwind in a powerful blitzkrieg that will destroy Iranian power (Daniel 11:40). Germany’s positioning of itself in northern Afghanistan provides it with an ideal staging point for such an attack.

Yet there is an even more pertinent reason, prophetically, for Germany’s encirclement of the Middle East. It has to do with the imminent fulfillment of a landmark prophecy in your Bible.

Turn to Luke 21. There in verse 20 you read that the major sign of the imminence of the fulfillment of Bible prophecies that lead to the grand smash climax of Jesus Christ’s return to this Earth is the sign of Jerusalem being surrounded by armies.

It’s a small jump from surrounding the Middle East with armies, such as Germany has carefully achieved, to squeezing the perimeter to encircle Jerusalem. Germany’s military deployment surrounding the Middle East is but one significant move toward this coming reality.

Keep watching for Germany to strengthen its encirclement of Iran, the biblical king of the south, and to close in on Jerusalem, surrounding it with armies (Luke 21:20). This is a most powerful sign of the imminence of Jesus Christ’s return, the best news that one could ever hope for.