For the Love of God (or Oil)

Daniel Ellsberg, the man who made public the Pentagon Papers, credits George Bush’s zeal to destroy Iraq to his love of three things: oil, oil, and oil. But he offers a fourth (more ominous) motivator: his and the Republicans’ election bids. Bush is creating a rally-‘round-the-president scenario (the same one that helped GOP candidates fare so well in 2002) in which he hopes to:

shift American Jews from the Democrats to the Republicans, semi-permanently, by the total backing of Sharon's (Greater Israel) policy, while gratifying the Christian Right by the same policy, in their current alliance with Likud and Likud-supporters in the US, reflecting the Christian Right's bizarre apocalyptic beliefs (about the necessary in-gathering of Jews in Israel as a precursor to Armageddon: at which time, incidentally, the Jews either convert, belatedly, or are doomed along with other unbelievers).

Say what? Armageddon? What may sound like a fringe theory actually isn’t. Remember the October 8, 2002 episode of 60 Minutes when Jerry Falwell called Muhammad a "terrorist"? The furor over that lame-brained comment distracted us from the real terror of Jerry: his belief (shared by 70 million fundamentalist Christians) that a war in the Holy Land will prompt Christ’s return:

Why do they love Israel so much? The return of the Jews to their ancient homeland is seen by Evangelicals as a precondition for the Second Coming of Christ. Therefore, when the Jewish state was created in 1948 they saw it as a sign. Israel’s conquest of Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967 deepened their excitement, heightened their anticipation. And today’s war between Jews and Arabs was also prophesized, they say. They’ve seen it all before – in the pages of the Bible.

…it all winds up here in Israel where, according to the Book of Revelations, the final battle in the history of the future will be fought on an ancient battlefield in northern Israel called Armageddon. It will follow seven years of tribulation during which the earth will be shaken by such disasters that previous human history will seem like a day in the country. The blood will rise as high as a horse’s bridle here at Armageddon, before Christ triumphs to begin his 1000-year rule.

And the Jews? Well, two-thirds of the will have been wiped out by now. And the survivors will accept Jesus at last.

Bush’s baffling deafness to the peaceful wishes of those who elected him now makes a bit more sense: there’s something beyond mere greed that fuels his war-at-any-cost zeal. Fulfilling Biblical prophecy, now that’s something you can put on a resume.