Iraq, War, Peace & Prayer

"Give peace our time, O Lord;
Because there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou, O God." [Mattins]


The talk of possible or impending war is daily discussed in the media and especially in that of the USA and Great Britain.

There is growing genuine disagreement between well-informed and well-intentioned people not only as to whether or not there should be a war against Iraq but also by whose decision such a war should be declared.

All agree that the government of Iraq has flagrantly disregarded and disobeyed resolutions of the UN over a decade and more. All agree that this government has committed many terrible deeds against its own people and other countries. Yet all do not agree that invasion of the country, removal of its government, destruction of its weaponry, and the installation of a new government is a clear duty for either the UN or for the USA and any allies. Yet most agree that the Weapons' Inspectors should go in and get on with their work.

Those advising President Bush seem to have a vision of the world that will only become a decent place if and only if it is made in the image of American democracy and capitalism. Thus for them this glorious end justifies the means. To bring about this state of affairs for the good of mankind, intermediate acts that disregard human rights, fall below the best standards and appear unjust or cruel may be necessary - such as holding prisoners without trial & the loss of innocent life in the war against supposed terrorism.

Motives ascribed to the Bush administration for its war talk on Iraq include the following: to put in place a government that thinks and acts like a good American government; to remove a source of chemical & biological agents being used for terrorism; to eliminate any nuclear devises; to gain control of 11% of the oil resources of the world and guarantee future supply of it to the western world; to eliminate the major enemy of Israel, the friend of the USA; to be in place to handle Saudi Arabia if it descends into internal disruption & anarchy and to ensure the oil supply from there for the future.

Whether public opinion & the Congress in the USA will allow the Bush administration to go ahead with its war plans and do so alone is difficult to assess right now. It seems that they will do so if and only if there is at least some partial endorsement by the UN. Certainly it looks more and more in Great Britain that involvement in any such war by her forces will only take place if there is some minimal UN approval for it.

Those who think that the Bush administration is much too influenced by one kind of think-tank and ideology and who want the greatest pressure to be put on Iraq by the UN for the immediate future, insist that time be given to allow the Inspectors to do their job and if in the end they are not able to do it thoroughly, then it be decided then and only then what to do. They fear that war [or heavy threat of war] will cause more problems than it solve - it will ensure that the outgoing government, having little regard for its own people, does as much damage as it can when attacked, that means of mass destruction get immediately into the hands of terrorists who are standing by to receive them, that oil wells are set on fire, that many thousands of innocent people die, that a whole region will be destabilized, that the economy of the world will be greatly disturbed; that Israel may be pressured to use atomic bombs; that the cleaning up operation will be ten times more difficult than in Afghanistan (which remains very unstable) and so on. Further, they point out that USA policy is not even-handed in the Middle East for it turns a blind eye to the non-compliance with UN resolutions of Israel.

What is particularly troubling to thinking Christians is the naivete of (a) liberal church leaders who speak of peace without due regard to justice and the containment of evil, and (b) evangelical preachers who judge and pronounce upon the events in the Middle East on the basis of their subjective interpretation of difficult passages of OT & NT prophecy and apocalyptic, which they read as a kind of right-wing manifesto.

We are called upon to pray fervently for the leaders of the nations that they will be inwardly moved to desire and work for those things that in the providence of God lead us out of the threat of war and into some state of affairs where there is the possibility of a peaceful resolution to the present crisis. "Give peace in our time, O Lord."

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon
Minister of Christ Church, Biddulph Moor,
England & Vice-President and Emissary-at-Large
of The Prayer Book Society of America