The Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah met with Chancellor Angela Merkel and German businessmen on Wednesday. He is currently engaged in a European tour that will concentrate on developing closer relations with Germany and the Vatican. During his meeting with Chancellor Merkel he is reported to have discussed “a host of bilateral relations that would cement partnership between Kuwait and Berlin” (Kuwait Times, April 28).

In reference to the emir’s upcoming visit to the Vatican, the Times also reported that a Vatican official stated, “The visit of His Highness the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah to the Vatican is an expression of friendship which would strengthen the good relations that exist between the Holy See and Kuwait.”

Why would the leader of tiny, Islamic, oil-rich Kuwait be visiting Germany and the Vatican?

A small but relatively rich state, courtesy of its healthy oil reserves and high prices for that commodity, Kuwait nestles at a vitally strategic point at the northern extremity of the Persian Gulf.

Rescued by U.S. intervention in 1991 from being overrun by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Kuwait has rebounded from the setback that war inflicted on its territory to weather the global economic storm comfortably. Last year it posted its 11th consecutive budget surplus. That year also saw an apparent marked improvement in relations between Kuwait and Iraq with the former appointing an ambassador to Baghdad.

However, the Kuwaiti regime recognizes that it has a need to hedge its bets when it comes to foreign policy. With the forecast drawdown of U.S. troops from Iraq, Kuwait is obviously concerned about the prospect of having a worse headache than old Saddam on its doorstep in the form of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Arabic nations are deeply concerned about the possibility of Iran quickly moving to fill any power vacuum created by a peremptory withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Additional concerns are being raised in the wake of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s unreliability in his declared allegiances.

Recently Kuwait was given extra cause for concern when Iran conducted naval exercises in the Gulf, even detaining and boarding foreign ships in Gulf waters in the process. Analysts clearly saw this action as Iran sending the signal that, if it chose to do so, it could easily seal the Gulf off to shipping and send the shipment of oil via the Persian Gulf into a tailspin.

So it is that with an ongoing war in neighboring Afghanistan, instability in Iraq, threats from Iran to Kuwait’s Gulf coast, plus an increasingly reluctant protector in Washington, this tiny Arabic nation is rethinking its foreign policy.

The Kuwaitis are of Arabic, Ishmaelitish stock. Together with their brother Arabian nations, they stem from the 12 princes fathered by Ishmael, son of Abraham and brother of the Israelite patriarch Isaac (Genesis 25). Thus, in predicting their foreign policy for today based on biblical prophecy, we must look to a clearly delineated forecast embedded in Scripture that names them and identifies the alliances they will form in the time we are living through today.

Believe it or not, there is such a prophecy that clearly shows the reason why the emir of Kuwait would be holding foreign-policy discussions with Germany and the Vatican this week! Though penned 3,000 years ago during the time of King David’s reign over the kingdom of Israel, this prophecy is in the process of beginning to be fulfilled at this very moment!

In Psalm 83 we read of a time just ahead when a confederation of Middle Eastern nations will together join in an alliance with each other in an attempt to wipe the nation of Israel off the map! In verses 3-7 we read, “They have taken crafty counsel against thy people …. They have said, Come and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee. The tabernacles of Edom [Turkey], and the Ishmaelites [Arabians]; of Moab [Jordan], and the Hagarenes [Syria]; Gebal [Lebanon], and Ammon [Jordan], and Amalek [Turkey]; the Philistines [Palestinians] with the inhabitants of Tyre [Lebanon]” (Psalm 83:3-7).

Yet there is one other nation—a nation which today carries far more power economically and politically than any of these Arabic nations individually or collectively can project today—with which they join in confederation against Israel in the near future in an alliance which is even now beginning to form. In verse 8, we read, “Assur also is joined with them.”

To which nation today does the Bible ascribe the name of its patriarch Assur (Asher)? None other than Germany!

Which nation do the prophecies indicate will dominate in the north of the globe, as “the king of the north” (Daniel 11), in our time? The very nation that currently holds the world to ransom as it insists on attaching certain conditions to the Greek financial bailout—Germany!

Which great spiritual power do the prophecies indicate, despite the lurid headlines swirling around it today, will be in alliance with Germany leading a great united European empire against the Anglo-Saxon and Judaic peoples, even to the point of surrounding Jerusalem with armies just prior to Christ’s return? (Luke 21:20). The very spiritual power that can trace its roots back to ancient Babylon—the religion of Rome!

Can you see now why little Kuwait is going cap in hand to Rome and Berlin this week? This is but a harbinger of the formation of the Psalm 83 alliance of Middle Eastern nations which will join in confederacy against the Anglo-Saxon and Judaic peoples in an effort to “cut them off from being a nation”!

Read our booklet The King of the South and face up to the reality toward which these events are leading. Truly, what is today developing in the Middle East and Europe is about to shake the nations! (Haggai 2:7). These events are destined to shake the very nation in which you are living, right up to your very own doorstep! Yet this is but a sign of the soon-coming realization of the desire of all nations. For as the Prophet Haggai declares, “And I will shake all nations and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.”