Last week, the Muslim Brotherhood’s supreme guide Mohammed Badie called on radical Islamists to use force against the “Zionist oppressors” of Jerusalem. This same group of radicals now runs the nation of Egypt.

“Zionists only understand force,” Badie said in a public statement published October 11. Arabs can’t achieve justice “through the corridors of the United Nations or through negotiations,” he said. “Jerusalem is Islamic … and nobody is entitled to make concessions [on the Holy City].”

Keep in mind—this hateful diatribe is coming from the spiritual adviser of Egypt’s new president, Mohammed Morsi. And yet Morsi recently told The New York Times that it’s the United States—not the Muslim Brotherhood leadership, but the United States—that needs to “fundamentally change its approach to the Arab world.”

In ancient times, the king of the south was located just south of Jerusalem in Egypt. In this end time, it will comprise a conglomerate of nations much larger and more powerful than ancient Egypt. And this group of nations will be located south of the king of the north in Europe.

God’s Word says there will be a clash in this end time between the kings of the north and south—Roman Catholic Europe and the nations of Islam! History, in other words, will repeat itself. The Bible says radical Islam will aggressively “push” against Europe (Daniel 11:40). The Euro-beast will then retaliate forcefully against the Islamic push—like a “whirlwind,” it says. After that, the Bible says the European superpower will enter Jerusalem.

“He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape” (verse 42). Egypt won’t escape because it will be firmly ensconced in the Iranian camp. This prophecy in Daniel 11 is why we knew, decades ago, that Egypt would eventually turn to radical Islam. That has now happened.

Even the major media outlets have awakened to the sobering reality of an Islamist state in Egypt. A few weeks ago, the New York Times reported on the final days of Hosni Mubarak—and how President Obama pushed him out of office. The Times referred to the phone call between the two presidents that occurred on Feb. 1, 2011. According to the report, Mr. Obama said an eight-month transition in Cairo wasn’t good enough—Mubarak had to step down immediately!

The Egyptian president reportedly shot back at Mr. Obama: “You don’t understand this part of the world. You’re young.”

A few minutes later, according to the Times, “A grim Mr. Obama appeared before hastily summoned cameras in the Grand Foyer of the White House. The end of Mr. Mubarak’s 30-year rule, Mr. Obama said, ‘must begin now.’ With those words, Mr. Obama upended three decades of American relations with its most stalwart ally in the Arab world, putting the weight of the United States squarely on the side of the Arab street.”

The Times went on to point out how risky this move was for President Obama. Mubarak had been a staunch American ally, after all. But the president forged ahead, ignoring advice from several key advisers, the Times said.

Today, after almost two years of political turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa, the president has learned some “hard lessons,” the Times says—that “bold words and support for democratic aspirations are not enough to engender good will in this region.”

One would hope the New York Times might learn from a few hard lessons as well. Back in February 2011, the Times told us it was perfectly fine for the White House to invite the Muslim Brotherhood to discussions about a new Egyptian government. The Brotherhood, after all, had “renounced violence years ago” (Feb. 1, 2011).

With cheerleaders like that in the major media, it’s no wonder President Obama said on Feb. 15, 2011: “I think history will end up recording that at every juncture in the situation in Egypt that we were on the right side of history.”

Truth is, America has been on the wrong side every step of the way.

On Libya, President Obama said Qadhafi’s death marked the end of a long and painful chapter in Libya. He said the people in the “new and democratic Libya” now had a chance to determine their own destiny.

These spectacular foreign-policy blunders are leading directly to what Jesus described in Matthew 24:21: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”

In verse 15, Jesus told us to heed to prophetic warnings of the Prophet Daniel: “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:).”

Now compare this verse with Luke 21:20: “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.” Jerusalem is the trigger! God calls these armies surrounding Jerusalem a “desolation” because, as it says in Daniel 12:11, it is the abomination that makes desolate. It causes the desolation of many nations. God is talking about problems like we’ve never seen before. It will get so bad that no flesh would be saved alive were it not for Christ’s intervention to put a stop to it (see verse 1 and Matthew 24:21-22).

This is where the events we have been witnessing in the past few years are leading. We are on a countdown! There is no turning back! It doesn’t matter if America gets a new president this November. It’s not going to roll back the Islamic winter. It’s not going to reset everything in the Middle East to where staunchly pro-American dictators hold back the tide of radical Islam.

The dam has broken! America is in full-scale retreat. It took out Saddam and handed Iraq to Iran. The surge in Afghanistan has failed. The U.S. left Iranian protesters isolated during the Green Revolution and then made the tragic mistake of enabling Islamic uprisings in Egypt and Libya. And it has totally abandoned Israel—the only Mideast nation, by the way, where there never seems to be any protests outside the U.S. Embassy.

As Charles Krauthammer recently said, the jihadists in the region are saying, “This is our time.” They know this is their time. The imperialist empire now forming in Europe also knows that this is their time.

And so, we had better watch Jerusalem—closely! Jerusalem is the powder keg that will set off a world explosion. From now on, Herbert W. Armstrong wrote back in 1976, Jerusalem will be the focal point of world happenings. For more on this subject, make sure to read Jerusalem in Prophecy.