Grave and Gathering Danger
by Miroslav Volf


"A grave and gathering  danger" is hanging over our world.  It is not so
much the  danger that  Saddam Hussein  presents for  the free  world, as
President  Bush has  claimed in  his September  12 speech  before United
Nations. It is  the danger of American preventive war  against Iraq. The
Bush  administration believes  that such  a war  is necessary  to remove
Saddam from power and to prevent him from acquiring nuclear capabilities
and deploying them along with biological and chemical weapons already in
his  possession.  There  is  no  doubt that  Saddam's  regime  is  evil,
oppressive and  cruel toward  its own citizenry,  especially minorities,
and that it represents a major threat to its near and distant neighbors.
As Christians committed to the justice  and well-being of all people, we
must  condemn  Saddam's injustices,  undertake  measures  to ensure  the
safety  of neighboring  nations, and  work toward  a just  government in
Iraq. These  same commitments should  lead us, however, to  condemn most
emphatically the proposed preventive war against Iraq.

Many have raised questions about  the political prudence and legality of
such a war.  It is likely to bring long-term  instability to a sensitive
and volatile  region and inflame  Islamic extremism. The war  would also
violate standards of international law  and create a dangerous precedent
for other nations (such as China,  India, Pakistan, Russia) to engage in
preventive wars which,  from their perspective, are as  justified as the
present  U.S. administration  deems its  war  against Iraq  to be.  Such
political and legal considerations are reason  enough not to start a war
against Iraq.  In addition, as  Christians we must  highlight compelling
moral  reasons against  such  a  war and  draw  attention  to the  grave
consequences it would have for already tense Christian-Muslim relations.

A preventive war against Iraq is  morally unacceptable for a very simple
reason: It cannot  be just to condemn masses of  people to certain death
in  order to  avert potential  death  of an  equal or  lesser number  of
people. President Bush  seems intent to act as if  the entire population
of Iraq  consisted of  one single  person named  Saddam Hussein.  In his
speech before  the United Nations the  suffering of the Iraqi  people --
who  themselves oppose  American intervention  as much  as they  dislike
their cruel leader -- figured only as  motivation for war, but not as an
inescapable  consequence of  the  war. Yet  the  death-toll among  Iraqi
population in  the planned  preventive war is  likely greatly  to exceed
estimated  100,000  Iraqi  casualties  during the  1991  Gulf  war.  The
proposed war  would pile suffering  upon suffering for Iraqi  people who
groan under  the iron fist  of their leader  and the misfortunes  he has
brought upon them. And we  should not forget likely American casualties,
estimated by some around 20,000 to 30,000. The most disturbing aspect of
President Bush's  justification of  the preventive  war against  Iraq is
seeming obliviousness to the immense suffering it would cause.

In  addition to  being  indefensible on  moral  grounds, preventive  war
against Iraq  would have deleterious consequences  for already difficult
relations  between  Christians  and   Muslims.  In  the  popular  Muslim
perception,  the West,  and in  particular, America  is identified  with
Christianity. A war by America, led by a president who publicly declares
himself a devout Christian,  against a Muslim nation -- even  if it is a
nation  whose regime  is  disliked  by the  majority  of Muslim  nations
--  would  be  seen  as  a crusade  against  Islam.  Daily  pictures  of
suffering Iraqis  in the media  throughout the Islamic world  would fuel
extremism and push many young  people into terrorist networks. Even more
importantly (if  one takes a  long term view  of things), the  war would
make all  efforts at dialogue  between Christianity and  Islam extremely
difficult. As a  result, an important venue to bridge  a gulf and lessen
tensions  between these  two  great traditions  would  be closed.  Since
Christianity and Islam together have  more than 3 billion adherents, the
immense negative  political consequences  of religious  tensions between
these two bodies would be inescapable.

The  preventive  war against  Iraq  is  not  "a  great moral  cause  and
a  great  strategic goal,"  as  President  Bush claims.  For  political,
legal, moral, and  inter-faith reasons, it is  imperative for Christians
unequivocally to condemn  the prospect of such a  war. Christians should
organize demonstrations, the leaders of  its churches should make public
statements, individuals  should place  their signatures on  petitions to
prevent the leaders of our nation from engaging in an immoral and unwise
war. The evil of Saddam's regime  is not in question. The means proposed
by President Bush for combating are likely to be even more evil.

(c) 2002 Miroslav Volf
.