You might want to go ahead and swallow whatever morning beverage you're drinking before you read this account – via Steven Waldman – of President Bush's efforts to rally support for the Iraq War, apparently confirmed in a new book by French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice. We can all at least hope that it's not true.
The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to [then-President Jacques Chirac], asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.
Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”
Sadly, on the heels of news that Scripture adorned the Pentagon's Iraq War reports to the Bush White House, this very strange story can't simply be dismissed, can it? Perhaps a reporter could follow up with Mr. Chirac and Mr. Bush and determine if it's possible that recent U.S. foreign policy was indeed driven by a 5th-grade reading of Ezekiel?
Should religious beliefs be allowed to guide a public official's fundamental civic values? Yes of course.
Should religious beliefs be allowed to direct war plans and troop deployments? In a word, no. Hopefully, that's not what happened…
