After three years of Islamic State control, Iraqi forces were finally able to regain control of Mosul, prompting Iraq’s United States-backed prime minister to declare victory last week. Eradicating the Islamic State from Iraq’s second-largest city certainly is a victory—but not for Iraq, or the U.S.

Iran is “shaping up to be one of the biggest winners in the struggle with Washington for influence in Baghdad and across the region,” the Wall Street Journal wrote on July 10.

“Authorities in Tehran have been quick to hail the battle against the Sunni extremists in Mosul as a triumph for them and their regional allies,” the article continued. Mosul is a critical strategic gain for Iran as it makes it easier for their militias to “ship weapons through northern Iraq and neighboring Syria to the Hezbollah militia Iran supports in Lebanon.”

And Mosul is not even the half of it, as Tim Arango noted recently in the New York Times. In a front-page feature on July 16, Arango fully exposed just how deep and diverse the Iranian infiltration into all aspects of Iraqi society has been—militarily, politically, culturally and economically:

Walk into almost any market in Iraq and the shelves are filled with goods from Iran—milk, yogurt, chicken. Turn on the television and channel after channel broadcasts programs sympathetic to Iran.

A new building goes up? It is likely that the cement and bricks came from Iran. …

Across the country, Iranian-sponsored militias are hard at work establishing a corridor to move men and guns to proxy forces in Syria and Lebanon. And in the halls of power in Baghdad, even the most senior Iraqi cabinet officials have been blessed, or bounced out, by Iran’s leadership.

The headline of that Times piece reads like something you may have read at theTrumpet.com 10 or 15 years ago: “Iran Dominates in Iraq After U.S. Opened Door.” The website version of that headline was even more Trumpet-esque: “Iran Dominates in Iraq After U.S. ‘Handed the Country Over’” (emphasis added throughout).

“When the United States invaded Iraq 14 years ago to topple Saddam Hussein, it saw Iraq as a potential cornerstone of a democratic and Western-facing Middle East,” the Times wrote. “From Day 1, Iran saw something else: a chance to make a client state of Iraq. … In that contest, Iran won, and the United States lost.”

As early as 1992, my father indicated the possibility of Iran gaining control of Iraq. Then, in 1994, he asked in this bold headline, “Is Iraq About to Fall to Iran?” Iran is the most powerful nation in the Middle East, he wrote more than two decades ago. “Can you imagine the power they would have if they gained control of Iraq, the second-largest oil producing country in the world?” He went on to say that the main reason America left Saddam Hussein in power after the first Gulf War was to prevent Iran from taking over!

Fast-forward to 2003—the year the United States knocked out Saddam and his brutal regime. In June of that same year, my father wrote another article underneath this headline: “Is Iraq About to Fall to Iran?” He wrote:

Now the U.S. has taken [Saddam Hussein] out of the way. But does America have the will or strength to guard the spoils of war? Prophecy states that it does not.

Have we now cleared the way for Shiite Iran to rule over Shiite Iraq? …

Now that Iraq has been taken out of the picture, Iran is even closer to becoming the reigning king of the Middle East. It may seem shocking, given the U.S. presence in the region right now, but prophecy indicates that, in pursuit of its goal, Iran will probably take over Iraq.

Today’s headlines reveal just how prescient the Trumpet’s forecast was 15 or 20 years ago. Even as the U.S. was overpowering Saddam’s regime, my father was pointing out signs of American weakness. He said even though President George W. Bush’s administration vowed to prevent an Iranian-style theocracy from taking over Iraq, “there are also signs in the way it is rebuilding the country that show a fundamental lack of political will to see this pledge through. Perhaps it will not be during the term of the current president, but the Bible shows that America will fail to contain Iran the way it hopes to.”

How true that last statement turned out to be! “Already, it is clear that Iran is eyeing the situation for opportunities,” my father wrote in 2003. “It would like nothing more than to extend its influence over the majority Shiite population in Iraq and assume control over its massive oil wealth.”

In that recent New York Times piece, Tim Arango quoted one outspoken critic of Iran as saying that the Iranians had outsmarted the Americans. She said, “America didn’t protect Iraq. They just toppled the regime and handed the country over to Iran.”

Now go back and read my father’s June 2003 article from the Trumpet magazine. Really, this entire issue is pertinent, but this article in particular. Also study my father’s booklet The King of the South, originally written in 1996 and updated after America toppled Saddam’s regime in 2003. My father wrote, “The U.S.’s removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003 opened the way for Iran to heavily infiltrate Iraq, providing armaments, financing and training to Shiite militias, sending thousands of operatives into the country, and establishing economic ties with it. Moreover, the most powerful political party in Iraq is allied with Tehran. This could be a decisive factor causing Iraq to fall under Iran’s control.”

In 2017, you can find a lot of headlines that say Iraq has fallen to Iran. In 1994, you could find the same news—23 years in advance from the Trumpet.