yes Babylon WAS reduced to ruins

this article shows that, contrary to a lot of modern interpreters, 

Babylon WAS destroyed, not by Cyrus but by repeated invaders 

after him. Since it was to be destroyed to not be inhabited again, 

and is only ruins, only some outlying villages remain but not the 

city, at one point travellers couldn't even see the ruins and 

weren't sure it ever existed, this is not going to be end time 

Babylon.

http://www.dabar.org/semreview/fallbabyprob.html

The theory that Jerusalem is end time Babylon fails because of 

Revelation saying that it is spiritually called Sodom where Jesus 

Christ was Crucified.

That leaves Rome as a possible, but NOT A ROMAN CATHOLIC 

ROME! if Rome is end time Babylon in Revelation it is not a 

Roman Catholic (or any kind of Christian unless maybe 

hyper charismatic of the Bethel Church in Redding, CA 

sort) Rome. The reason is, that this looks like a revival 

of paganism (not disguised paganism as detractors of 

Romanism like to call it) and Reconstructionist Paganism 

is working there now. Reconstructionist Paganism take 

archaeological and historical information, and attempts 

to recreate accurately (not in a misty eyed New Age sense) 

the paganism of pre Christian cultures, thus, Celtic 

Reconstructionism, Slavic Reconstructionism, Aztec 

Reconstructionism, etc. etc. 

The Greek form was granted legal status in Greece some 

years back, followed by a rash of fires I think was the 

wrath of God. The Roman Reconstructionism is working 

in Italy. Since I haven't been on the yahoo egroups that 

specialize in any of this for several years, my information 

is out of date, and unless the movements collapsed I can 

only assume they are gaining more ground. 

These appeal to ethnic pride and a sense of antiquity and 

basically all argue that a people should worship their 

ancestral "gods" and not Jesus Christ.

while there is evidence that "Babylon" was a nickname

given by Jews to Rome, and that likely Peter did refer to

Rome when saying "Babylon" since in those days Christian

and Jewish pop culture were the same, that doesn't mean

the Vatican has anything to do with this. (It is not even on

any of the seven hills of Rome, and is outside both modern

and ancient Roman city limits.)

There might be other options. Or Babylon the Great a mystery might 

be what Mark S. Watson called a "moving stronghold," a spiritual 

stronghold that relocates when its host is destroyed, and he and 

others figure it is currently USA or at least New York City.

Wikipedia shows that of all the cities in the world built on seven hills, 

USA has TWENTY of them. The 20 cities listed incl. many I know 

nothing about, but the ones I do know something about are 

part of the great evil so "Babylon" might refer to a network of 

cities involved in this, with NYC at the apex. Other possibilities exist, 

this might take longer to play out than most think. 

Mecca as Babylon fails because nothing that happens to it would be 

visible from the ships at sea, unless some cataclysm turns it into a 

deep water port in future.