David Parsons, October 24, 2002

It is astonishing to witness all the heavy lifting the Bush Administration has had to exert to convince other world leaders of the obvious -- Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein poses an immediate and grave danger to world peace and must be driven from power.

The entire planet knows that the ruthless regime in Baghdad has been obsessed with crossing the nuclear threshold for well over two decades, has used its chemical arsenal on its own people, and admitted in the mid-1990s to possessing a biological weapons program. It is also common knowledge that Saddam is under strange and strong delusions about himself, and appeals to popular Islamic militancy to fuel his mad dreams of reviving the ancient Babylonian juggernaut.

Nonetheless, key US allies, particularly in the European Union, continue to shrink from the challenge laid down by US President George W. Bush in his landmark address on September 12 to the United Nations -- either face up to Saddam’s threat to global peace and stability or risk becoming another obsolete League of Nations.

Few leaders outside the US, Britain and Israel are taking the Iraqi threat seriously enough and instead blame that "cowboy" in the White House for unnecessarily escalating tensions in the Middle East, supposedly out of a desire to avenge his father’s presidency.

Many add that with the fall of Soviet communism, Bush and the "Christian Right" have had to invent a new enemy, and have found it in radical Muslim terrorists and the despotic regimes that support them. Some are even faulting Bible-believing Christians for provoking a "clash of civilisations" with Islam -- especially over the Land of Israel -- out of some morbid desire to bring on the Apocalypse.

It would be a serious mistake to dismiss the real and present dangers facing the free, democratic world with such trite theories and mocking labels. Saddam was gassing his foes long before Bush entered politics. Islam dreamt of world conquest from its inception, centuries before it became politically incorrect to say so. And Muslim terrorists are bent on acquiring and using weapons of mass destruction regardless of what is said in Western pulpits.

To a large extent, the scoffing at Bush and his conservative Christian base is meant to conceal the real reasons behind the international community’s timidity in the Middle East. It is widely known that Europe, for instance, is heavily dependent on Arab oil. It is less well known, however, that the European Community opened a discreet but high-level "dialogue" mechanism with the Arab League in the wake of the 1973 oil embargo that to this day still moulds much of EU policy towards the region -- including its pro-Palestinian slant.

The Arab oil sheikhs have also used their extensive wealth to acquire huge stakes in Europe’s economies and banking reserves -- which also buys influence in Paris, Berlin and London.

There is residual guilt from the Continent’s dark "colonial" past, leaving politicians with a misguided sense of obligation to tolerate Third World despots even when they clearly do not deserve it.

Finally, there are now large and rapidly expanding Muslim immigrant communities throughout Europe. In many parts, there are more Muslims attending Friday prayers in mosques than Christians attending church services on Sunday.

All in all, it adds up to Arab/Muslim interests holding a fairly tight grip over Europe. But thankfully, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been able to break from the pack and support Bush’s push for disarmament and regime change in Iraq.

This is due in part to Britain’s traditional alliance with America and the close cooperation between the two nations’ intelligence services, which provides Blair with access to critical data on Iraq’s capabilities that others may not have. But at heart, it is a fundamental recognition that we no longer have a choice in the matter. The genie of jihad terrorism is out of the bottle and is killing and maiming far and wide -- from Manhattan to Manila. Only sober thinking, strong political will and sustained military action will ever put it back inside, beginning next with Baghdad. Bush’s swaggering style may rub some the wrong way, but that is no excuse for failing to saddle up and join the posse.

David Parsons is Editor of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) News Service.