Unfortunately, today’s brutal reality of escalating carnage has proven far more frightening than even yesterday’s unheeded concerns. The removal of Saddam Hussein and his iron grip over Iraq has freed Iran to spread its wings and flaunt its potency to the world. With barely a wink and a nod, the Middle East’s rising power player has pushed its surrogate Hezbollah into unleashing the fury of Israel into a full scale war. Meanwhile, the bloodbath that is
Iraq is spiraling more and more out of the control of anyone. And, as feared by those early Cassandras, the growing violence is now spilling over the border into Turkey which is threatening to send its army into northern Iraq to control the Turkish Kurdish guerillas there.
Truly, the world seems to be hovering on the brink of another world war, with Iran and the US fighting it out through their surrogates at present but edging toward a direct confrontation of their own. Should that clash occur, the Shiites in Iraq might join with their Iranian brethren against the US, and the ensuing chaos in Iraq would make the current disaster look like a cakewalk by comparison. In addition, the nightmare of death and destruction unleashed by a clash between the US and Iran would also result in a huge spike in oil prices that would send a devastating tsunami throughout the world economy.
The stressful themes of unpredictable tension and erupting anger can be seen in this year’s Spring Equinox chart, which describes the period from March 21, 2006 through March 20, 2007. This chart has a very volatile and potentially destructive Mercury/Uranus conjunction square to Mars that is currently being triggered by Uranus on the Spring Equinox Mercury (14Pisces20) from May through July 2006. A further layer of stress during the three months of summer is described in the Summer Solstice chart, especially when drawn for either Jerusalem or Beirut, where the very tight Saturn/Mars conjunction (9-10 Leo) is exactly on the Midheaven and square both the Moon and Jupiter, with Chiron conjunct the IC. Transiting Pluto (24 Sagittarius) is in precise sesquiquadrate to the Saturn/MC (9 Leo) conjunction during all of July and August, accentuating the intense anger, distress, and wretchedness currently felt in both Israel and Lebanon. In addition, transiting Jupiter (9 Scorpio) has been further agitating this configuration during July, with its exact square to the Beirut/Jerusalem Solstice MC/Saturn, and continuing with a square to Solstice Mars (10Leo45) through August 10.
Meeting this cascade of catastrophe with his usual hands-off ineptness has been George Bush the Vacuous, supposed leader of the actually leaderless free world. His “let the locals handle it” policy has been the refrain from the beginning in the Arab-Israeli conflict and continues today as war engulfs the region. It was, as we all remember, the administration stance during the domestic disaster of Katrina as well. In fact, it permeates much policy streaming out of this White House, and can be roughly translated as follows: I would rather be playing golf or riding my bicycle, so don’t bother me. Astrologically, this disengaged and essentially dysfunctional attitude can be seen by the inordinately strong Neptune influence in the Inaugural chart, tightly square the Ascendant, and triggered currently by the year-long Inaugural solar arc progressed Ascendant (14 Taurus) moving to square Inaugural Neptune (14Aquarius35), exact in August. In almost every arena, this administration seems to exude the incompetence, lack of reality-based thinking, and self-deception of Neptune.
But the second Bush Inaugural chart also contains a very strong imprint from Saturn which painfully imposes the limitations of reality onto the fantasy-prone Neptunian landscape created by the Bushistas. From mid-July through mid-August 2006, as transiting Saturn squares Inaugural Ascendant, quincunxes Inaugural Venus and Mercury, and opposes Inaugural Neptune, we will witness the administration scramble unsuccessfully to deal with the painful reality (Saturn) its ineptitude has wrought. There will be an especially potent shattering of administration fantasy when Saturn opposes Inaugural Neptune and squares progressed Ascendant from July 29 through August 5.
I have written extensively about the war configuration in Israel’s chart which began when progressed Mars (27 Virgo) came into orb of squaring natal Jupiter (27Sagittarius39) and progressed Uranus (27Gemini50) in March 2006, around the time when Hamas was voted into power and the peace negotiations fell apart. This very aggressive and potentially unilateral energy was powerfully triggered by Israeli progressed Moon (27 Virgo) coming to a conjunction with progressed Mars in late June and July 2006 and then moving to square natal Jupiter and progressed Uranus through early August. It has also been triggered by the transiting Node (27 Pisces) from July 11 through July 25. In August, this very volatile and dangerous energy will be set off by transiting Jupiter (11 -12 Scorpio) from about August 15 through August 28, and again in September by transiting Mars (27 Virgo) from September 3 through September 5. Although tensions will remain, there may be somewhat of a lull in the violence after mid-September until transiting Pluto (27 Sagittarius) joins this war configuration, beginning in late December 2006 and continuing through November 2007, potentially unleashing a further round of significant hostilities in this clash between Israel and its enemies. It is not really until after March 2008 that the progressed war configuration and the transits that activate it begin to really dissipate and this very dangerous situation holds the potential for being significantly defused.
A further look at Israel’s chart suggests significant difficulties through late July and August 2006 that prevent a successful completion of Israel’s goals. It is clear that many attempts will be made to restrain Israel and force compromise. Saturn will be square Israel’s Node (14Taurus01) and conjunct its own place in the chart (16Leo25) during much of this period (7/24 through 8/20/06). The pressure is then less pronounced after August until mid-October, when transiting Saturn begins a prolonged square to Israel’s Sun, from October 2006 through mid-January 2007. This transit suggests increasing strain, goals thwarted, and seemingly insurmountable difficulties. And it is into this depressing situation that Israel’s war configuration is again unleashed by Pluto, beginning in late December 2006 through November 2007, and then continuing intermittently through March 2008 due to action from transiting Mars. Somewhere around mid-July 2007, however, when the Saturn square to Israel’s Sun finishes its last crossing, there may be a significant lessening of the ongoing burden and strain of this long and difficult period. But the military indications, as mentioned, continue through roughly March 2008.
It is useful to look at the birth chart of the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah (8/31/60), and compare it to what we have found in Israel’s data. As would be expected, in July and August 2006, Nasrallah enjoys a boost of personal power, impact, and intensification of his ideological beliefs with the Pluto station on his natal Jupiter (23Sagittarius57). During Israel’s time of significant distress late in the year and into early 2007, Nasrallah, conversely, will enjoy a series of Jupiter transits that suggest success and optimism (Jupiter aspects the Sun, Mercury, the Node, and Mars during this period). We can expect this October through January period to not go well for Israel, while Hezbollah is likely to make gains in public opinion and perhaps militarily.
Although this Jupiterian benefit for Nasrallah continues through May 2007, there are indications of some trouble for him beginning in March, when Uranus first crosses his South Node in Pisces (15Pisces30). This aspect, which returns quite strongly at the end of 2007, suggests a blind spot that will eventually be Nasrallah’s undoing, and, in Pisces, it likely relates to an overzealous, self-delusional ideology. There are also indications of Nasrallah in an increasingly reckless, angry mood that might translate into extremely aggressive tactics on the ground beginning in late April and continuing through July 20, 2007, with a Uranus station square to his Mars (18Gemini25). Remember, it is around mid-July when the Saturn energy begins to lift from Israel, so we might infer that an overreach by Nasrallah contributes to the shift in the wind at this point.
Nasrallah will be intensely popular among his followers and able to arouse powerful emotions, with transiting Pluto square to his Venus, from December 2006 through early October 2007. His luck begins to change, however, around mid-September 2007, when Uranus returns for a station on his South Node (self-delusion) through early January 2008, and Saturn crosses his Pluto (October) and then makes a prolonged station on his Sun/Mercury conjunction, from November 2006 through mid-January 2008. Thus, the final four months of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 will be a period of sudden, upsetting reversals, increasing failure, and a general loss of public support and power for Hezbollah’s current Titan. Difficulties continue for Nasrallah well into 2009, with no indication of a further eruption of aggression after March 2008, the last crossing of Uranus square to his Mars, and the time when Israel’s war aspects also seem to wane.
In sum, we can expect the current conflagration between Israel and Hezbollah to probably continue, with some periods of lull, through March 2008, with Israel struggling considerably in late 2006 and early 2007, and Hezbollah significantly forced back beginning around October 2007. Powerful and decisive events are likely in May, June, and July 2007, and January through March 2008. Although I will not be elaborating on it in this article, the potential for Iran and the US to become more directly involved in this war begins around March 2007. It is not at all impossible that our undaunted War President will be up for round three at some time between March and May 2007. On the positive side, the US would not enter into this conflict under the same malefic aspects with which it entered into the Iraq War, but there are significant and problematic issues the nation will be dealing with in late 2008 and 2009, though it is not at all clear if they relate to this particular battle.
