Eschat said (in post #3):
Of course nuclear war may come first so that won't really matter then.
The coming tribulation of Revelation chapters 6-18 could begin with a nuclear war, which, with its aftermath of famines and epidemics, will end up killing a fourth of the world (Revelation 6:4-8). The "great sword" of this war (Revelation 6:4) could be Israel's nuclear weapons.
One way this war could happen is that the U.S. could build up the Iraqi Army until it's huge enough and well-equipped enough to serve as a proxy army (for the U.S. and Israel) for an all-out ground invasion of Iran (to end Iran's nuclear weapons program and extremist regime). As part of the buildup of the Iraqi Army, the U.S. could reinstall some of the former Baathist military hierarchy to run the Iraqi Army more efficiently and ruthlessly. And if the current Shiite-dominated government of Iraq balks at any invasion of fellow-Shiite Iran, the CIA and the Mossad could then help the Baathists (who see non-Arab Iran as an enemy of Arab autonomy) to take back complete control of Iraq via a coup d'etat.
To help get the Iraqi masses and the world behind the idea of an all-out Iraqi invasion of Iran, false-flag operations could be managed by the CIA and the Mossad by which it will be made to seem that (non-Arab, Persian) Iran is attacking the Iraqi Sunni Arabs and their little children terroristically with "dirty bombs" made from Iranian-enriched uranium, so that the Iraqi Arab masses will become enraged and begin to call for all-out retaliation against (what they could call) "the vile Persians", and the world could see an Iraqi invasion of Iran as being completely justified by self-defense.
But then, right when Iraq is all ready to invade Iran, the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel (led by a false Messiah) could destroy the Muslim Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque (the third holiest sites in Islam) on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, to prepare the site for the building of a third Jewish temple. This could so enrage Muslims worldwide, including the (Muslim) Iraqi Army, that the Iraqi Baathist Generals could see it as a perfect excuse to abandon the plan to invade huge Iran and instead turn and send their huge army against tiny Israel, completely defeating it (Daniel 11:15-17; in verse 17, the original Hebrew word translated as "daughter" is "bath").
But this would not be the ultimate reason for the Baathist attack, which could continue on south to also defeat Egypt (Daniel 11:15), the regime of which (even if there's some ostensible change in Egypt) the Baathists could see as still being a puppet of the U.S., just as they could see Israel as being a colony of the U.S. The ultimate aim of Baathism is to unite all Arab lands from Oman to Morocco into one massive, powerful United Arab States free of all foreign hegemony.
The all-out Iraqi attack on Israel could be joined by the Baathist Syrian Army (with all of its missiles, many tipped with nerve agents), as well as by all of Iran's long-range missiles and all of Hezbollah's and Hamas' missiles and guerrillas. Tiny Israel could find itself suddenly attacked from three directions at the same time, with tens of thousands of missiles raining down on its cities and military bases, and thousands of Iraqi tanks (meant to defeat huge Iran) pouring across its borders. As Israel starts to see its tiny sliver of land completely overrun, and sees its defeat as imminent, in retaliation it could drop nuclear bombs on Baghdad, Damascus (Isaiah 17:1), Tehran and other major cities of Iraq, Syria, and Iran.
There could be so many nuclear explosions sending so much radioactive dust and ash so high into the atmosphere that it could be blown eastward and fall on hugely-populated South Asia, ruining so many crop fields and immune systems there with radiation that a fourth of the world could end up dying from the war and its aftermath of famines and epidemics. This could fulfill the horrible war which will begin the coming tribulation, which war will, with its aftermath of famines and epidemics, end up killing a fourth of the world (Revelation 6:4-8). The great sword of this war (Revelation 6:4) could be Israel's nuclear weapons.
After an Iraqi Baathist General who could lead the defeat and occupation of Israel and Egypt mysteriously disappears from the scene (Daniel 11:19), the Antichrist, who could be an Arab, could arise peacefully out of Lebanon (from the modern city of Tyre: Ezekiel 28:2, cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:4), and he could take up the mantle of Baathism and vow to (in his words) "complete the great work of Arab liberation and unification".
The first thing the Antichrist could do once he's given control (Daniel 11:21) of a Baathist confederation of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and a "United Palestine" (i.e. a defeated Israel), is to perform a very small and localized attack against an army of ultra-Orthodox Jews holed up in the walled Old City of Jerusalem and led by a false ultra-Orthodox Jewish Messiah (Daniel 9:26a, Daniel 11:22). They could have managed to hold off the first Baathist attack even as it overran the rest of Israel, because the walled Old City of Jerusalem is considered holy to the Muslims, and so it's not to be bombarded or destroyed. The Antichrist could manage in some way to take the Old City without doing it much harm.
Then, instead of executing all the ultra-Orthodox Jews and their false Messiah, the Antichrist will do an amazing thing: he will make a peace treaty with them (Daniel 11:23); he will "cut" a peace treaty with them and their false Messiah (Daniel 9:26a), permitting them to keep a third Jewish temple (Revelation 11:1) which they will have built on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, and to keep control of the Old City, for at least seven more years (Daniel 9:27a), so long as they give up the outer court of the temple (Revelation 11:2a) to the Muslims so that the Muslims can rebuild the Al Aqsa Mosque on the southern end of the Temple Mount and resume worship there.
By this peace treaty, the Antichrist could present himself to the world as (in his words): "A reasonable man, a man of peace. I am no Hitler. I do not desire a second Holocaust. I am willing to give the religious Jews in the Old City seven years to show that they are willing to live peacefully with others, that they are different than the Zionist Jews who have just destroyed the world with their nuclear weapons".
And if the Antichrist gets flak from his fellow Baathists for letting the ultra-Orthodox Jews keep the Old City, he could explain to them privately that (in his words) "It's all a temporary ruse, meant to keep world opinion off guard while we consolidate our position". The Baathists could consolidate their position by becoming so well dug-in, and so well equipped and advised militarily by the Russians (in the name of "Arab self-determination"), that a U.S. counter-attack to "restore" (i.e. to take back) Israel and Egypt could fail, and leave the Baathists in control, and in a position to extend their power over all the rest of the Arab nations.
For if the Baathists defeat Israel, they will be hailed by the Arab masses as magnificent heroes, so that the Baathists could have no problem persuading the Arab masses to support them. And the Baathists could justify their defeat of the Egyptian military regime, and then their subsequent defeat of other regimes such as in Jordan, by railing against them as being (what they could call):
"These vile cronies of the Americans. These cronies pretended to be for the Arab people while in fact they were taking American bribes in the billions, completely selling out our Palestinian brothers to the endless cruelties of the Zionist occupation, and keeping you, the great majority of the Arab people, in poverty. These cronies, like the Zionists themselves, were the American bulwarks against our glorious Arab unification and return to world power. Join now with us, the Baathists, that we might bring about the long-awaited Arab Renaissance, the long-awaited Arab Resurrection [the Arab word 'Baath' can mean 'Renaissance' and 'Resurrection'], that we Arabs might all rise up together and unite, from Oman to Morocco, into one great United Arab States, one great Arab Empire, shaking off completely all the shackles of the West, placed upon us so long ago, and return to our former glory as we had during the Middle Ages, when we were far superior to the West".
The Baathists could also rail against the kings and sheikhs of the Arab Gulf States for (in their words) "hoarding the huge oil wealth given by Allah to all the Arabs, and keeping the Arab masses in poverty and subjugation to Western interests". The Baathists are socialist, and so could call for the distribution of the Arab oil wealth to the Arab masses (Daniel 11:24). In this way, and by their defeat of Israel, the Baathists could easily turn the masses to their side in every Arab nation.
During the first few years of the peace treaty, the Antichrist could employ Baathism as the means by which he will gradually and peacefully put together a United Arab States, or Arab Union, stretching from Oman to Morocco. Once he has accomplished this, he could then begin to downplay Baathism and start speaking of "world peace and the unity of mankind". He could convince an oil-thirsty European Union to let the oil-rich Arab Union join it, thereby forming a massive Mediterranean Union, which he could manage to peacefully gain control of and use as his base of power to eventually exert his hegemony over the entire earth (Revelation 13:7b).
Then, only some 3.5 years after making the peace treaty, the Antichrist will break the treaty, attack the third Jewish temple in Jerusalem, stop the daily Mosaic animal sacrifices offered in front of it, and sit in the temple and proclaim himself God (Daniel 11:31,36, Matthew 24:15, 2 Thessalonians 2:4). He will then rule the whole earth by the power of Lucifer (Satan, the dragon: Revelation 12:9) for 3.5 years (Revelation 13:4-18, Daniel 7:25, Daniel 12:7, Revelation 12:14), or 1,260 days (Revelation 12:6).
The return of Jesus Christ from heaven (Matthew 24:30, Revelation 19:11-21, 1 Thessalonians 4:16) may not occur immediately after the 1,260 days of the Antichrist's worldwide reign are over, but could occur 75 days later, on the 1,335th day after the Antichrist and his followers set up the abomination of desolation (possibly a standing android image of the Antichrist) in the holy place of the Jewish temple (Daniel 12:11-12, Daniel 11:31, Matthew 24:15). The 75 days could be taken up by the vials of God's wrath which will be poured out on the worshippers of the Antichrist (Revelation 16). When Jesus returns he will completely defeat the Antichrist (the individual-man aspect of the beast) and the False Prophet (Revelation 19:20, 2 Thessalonians 2:8), and he will have Satan bound in the bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1-3). Then Jesus and the just-resurrected church (including those in the church who had been beheaded by the Antichrist) will reign on the earth for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:4-6, Revelation 5:10, Revelation 2:26-29).
