“I further think that they hope to push us to the point of barbarity.”
Barbarity against perpetrators of certain barbarity is no vice.
“I swear they are goading us, in a satanic fashion, towards a biblical conclusion in the middle east.”
The ultimate spread of the satanic influence will be to all parts of the globe, though not necessarily throughout 100% of every affected nation. Whatever that means for “The Lower 48” I think it unlikely that The US will be fully overrun, and I’m confident we will not be totally politically overthrown. There will be some remnant, here, standing when Revelation 19 becomes Reality.
“The antiChrist might be someone who leads the west in a storm of retribution against Islam itself.”
The antichrist will be a radical Islamist figure. He will not LEAD the west; he will provoke the West — through global, overt oppression penetrating even deep into this country — into a storm of retribution culminating in his Divine Assassination per Revelation 19. How we fare on these shores is not clear. It seems certain there will be domestic resistance out of — if nothing else — sheer desperation. How much resistance and how effective is not a known quantity, at this point. It will fall to each person to decide for himself to be part of that or to bow the knee to Evil.
I just don’t read the AC as being Muslim, but I do believe he’s setting up both sides against the middle. I think he’s acting in a pure Machiavellian play. I think he will emerge from the west, and the religious leader as well.