Before the Second Coming of Christ
Egypt, Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, Syria, etc. are all historical places.
Wars were fought in these areas so many times in the past. Great kingdoms were established in these areas so many times in the past. And great figures emerged so many times there before.
Indeed focal points of the history also changed so many times and in various ways since eras of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, Syria, etc. had gone. In Europe economic and political power shifted to the north of the Alps. The UK expanded its power to overseas and became the largest owner of colonies. Then the US took over the dominant position from the UK and Europe. Today, economic and political situations in East Asia with involvement of the US are recognized as the most influential one on the whole world. But since 2001, those old historical regions have emerged again like a nightmare of mankind.
It was roughly 2700 BC that the Egyptians started to build pyramids. Then for 1000 years they continued this mighty custom till about 1700 BC. Around 2500 BC the three great pyramids were completed at Giza. But Egypt could not conquer and rule the world. Though it played important roles in the eras of Abraham, Caesar, Christ Jesus, etc., Egypt never became a world power or an original place of a world religion. Egypt was forgotten for so long, though it fought against Israel after WWII as one of major players in the modern history. Then it looked like going to fade away in the history. But in 2010s, it suddenly caught the eyes of the world as it repeated power shift domestically through an election and intervention of military.
It is truly sad to see that a nation and its people whose ancestors had built the world first and greatest stone monuments 4500 years ago have failed in presenting themselves as the most advanced, civilized, and culturally and religiously influential people. And as if they were destined to display their failure in the world, Egyptians today live under the military rule after they failed in their version of the Arab Spring. But its failure looks like still going on. Its implication is still vivid among Arabs and Muslims, since Egypt is a kind of center of the Islamic world in a different meaning than Saudi Arabia is. Anyway Egypt is not a forgotten country now, but it is still one of focal points.
It was 2003 that Mesopotamia played a remarkable role in the modern history. In the wake of the 2001 Terror on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the US, President George W. Bush started invasion of Iraq. The US political leaders decided to eradicate Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for some reasons, though it was not Saddam who had ordered terrorists to attack the East Coast of the US in 2001.
The greatest ancestor of Judaists, including Moses, Christ Jesus and St. Paul, Abraham was born around Ur, an ancient city in Mesopotamia today called Iraq, 2000 years ago. It was 500 years after King Khufu built the largest pyramid at Gaza. God however did not choose King Khufu and Egyptians as His people. But God called Abraham from Ur to the west, leaving the then prosperous kingdom of Mesopotamia. Abraham walked up along the Euphrates through Syria and finally to Egypt and then he came back to Palestine. Finally he became the greatest ancestor of Hebrews God selected as His own tribe.
After Abraham, no such a glorious incident occurred in Mesopotamia. Tribes who occupied Mesopotamia could not play a key role in the history. Babylon takes only attentions of those who learn history today as a place where Alexander the Great died. And Baghdad only shone in history as the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate which existed as an Islamic empire from 750 to 1258. Though they enjoyed prosperity called the Golden Age during rule of the Abbasid Caliphate, Mongolian invasion in 1258 put an end of the Golden Age and the glorious days of Islamic Mesopotamia. Then the region began slowly fading away in history.
But in early 1990s Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq, suddenly annexed Kuwait by force after a decade long war against Iran, which is regraded as a proxy war between the US and the Soviet Union. Then US President George W.H. Bush sent the greatest troops since the Vietnam War which ended in early 1970s, to Saudi Arabia and other anti-Iraqi Islamic nations surrounding Iraq to finally destroy Iraqi troops in Kuwait. President Hussein came to hold a grudge against President Bush. And his son President W. Bush wanted to take on Saddam Hussein as Saddam continued to insult his father and to pose a dangerous threat to Israel and Saudi Arabia, though the linkage between Iraq and AlQaeda was still a kind of mystery.
So, when Osama bin Laden and AlQaeda attacked the US in September 2001, President W. Bush seized this opportunity well to launch a war against Saddam Hussein on behalf of his father who had been actually targeted by terrorists hired by Iraq, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, a kind of rival for Iraq over hegemony on Arab Islamic nations. Though the US troops completely withdrew from Iraq in December 2011 under President Obama's presidency after having destroyed Saddam's influence, Iraq is still suffering sectarian violence and terror. With 100,000 to one million Iraqis were killed in connection with this Iraqi War since the US invasion of 2003, it is still one of focal points in the current world.
Afghanistan was a limit only to which Alexander the Great marched to the east. Since then, it contributed to some development of Buddhism taking in some Greek influences, but it never played an essential role in history. But before WWII, it became a stage where the UK and Russia were confronted with each other over hegemony in Central Asia to India. After WWII, in the wake of the Vietnam War, the US secretly helped insurgents in Afghanistan under control of the USSR. So, the civil war occurred in Afghanistan as the largest armed conflict, next to the Vietnam War and the Korean War, in the Cold War Era. Many Muslims joined this civil war against USSR troops. There AlQaeda and the Taliban were formed after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops.
Then in 2001, AlQaeda based in Afghanistan launched the terror in New York and Washington DC using hijacked commercial jet planes. A few months later the US started retaliation, sending bombers and troops to Afghanistan. Even today US troops, joined by NATO troops, are fighting there. However, they don't seem to conquer the region yet better than Alexander the Great who invaded Afghanistan in 320s BC.
Finally, Syria is a key area in the long history of the world. Not only Abraham but also Alexander the Great and Caesar traveled Syria. Even ancient Egyptian kingdoms sometimes sent troops up to Syrian in their effort to hold hegemony in the region. (The Battle of Kadesh took place around 1274 BC between Egyptians led by Ramesses II and troops of the Hittite Empire on the Orontes River now in Syria.) And most importantly, it was near Damascus that St. Paul was converted to Christianity through spiritual interference by Christ Jesus. Since then, Syria did not play any decisive role in history till its war against Israel after WWII. It was just in 1946 that Syria got independent from Persians, Greeks, Romans, other Arabs, crusaders, Mongolians, Islamic Egyptians, Islamic Turks, and France.
But today, Syria is in a strange civil war. It can be regraded as an extension of the Arab Spring. But, it is apparent that the coalition of the US and Israel is vying with the camp of Russian and Iran for control over Syria so close to Israel. It is estimated that more than 100,000 Syrian citizens have been killed in this civil war since 2011. And it is still going on.
In summary, it looks as though that before the Second Coming of Christ Jesus mankind is forced to review its long history full of wars and tragedies with some glories over Egypt, Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, Syria, etc.
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Rev 2:1 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;
Rev 2:2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
Rev 2:3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.