Bush, Iraq, Israel and Eschatology

Escha-what??? - No, it's not the study of M.C. Escher's more obscure artworks.

Eschatology is the theological study of "end times". Just about every religion man has invented over the years has some kind of cataclysmic "end of the world" buried in its mythos somewhere. The "popular notion" of Christian Eschatology tends to focus heavily on the interpretation of the Book of Revelations in the New Testament.

George W. Bush has seldom made any bones about his religious convictions and the fact that they play an important role in his thought processes. Ever since Bush came to power in 2000, there has been quite a bit of speculation over how much Bush allows religion to influence his foreign policy.

With events in and around Israel quite central to the content of the Book of Revelations, there is perhaps reason to begin to suspect that various people in the Bush administration view events in the Middle East as potentially fulfilling some of the prophecies of the Bible. With websites springing up dedicated to the whole issue of an apparently pending apocalypse, there is clearly an emerging, near fever pitch, desire for the so-called "rapture" to happen.

Those that believe in a pending apocalypse point to the formation of Israel in 1948, and the growing wars in the Middle East as fulfilment of some of the key "end-times" prophesies in the Bible. In BushCo's foreign policy two things leap immediately to mind as contributing to the 'war in the Middle East' prophecy - first, American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nobody likes to live under military occupation - it's nasty at the best of times, but the Arab will be particularly horrified by the notion, as it will offend the tribal and family notion of honor. Second is America's unswerving loyalty to the current state of Israel. (For example, BushCo's refusal to deal with Yasser Arafat makes little rational sense when one reviews the actions and behaviour of Ariel Sharon's government towards the Palestinians. The obvious bias of the BushCo. administration in Israel has completely undermined the ability of the United States to act as a peace broker in the region.

Revelations 9:15-16 talk of releasing four angels bound in the River Euphrates:

Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.

9:15

And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.

Since the Euphrates and it's sister river, Tigris, just happens to run through Iraq, one could also fit the invasion of Iraq into this. Time in the Bible is seldom literal time, so one could argue that the current "insurgency" in Iraq is the angel prepared for a day; Iran, with it's ongoing confrontation with Washington over nuclear weapons the 'angel prepared for a month', and the outrage of the Arab world towards the treatment that Iraq has experienced under American occupation the angel prepared for a year.

With the rise of a particularly strident form of evangelical christianity in the United States, it is not a big leap to see how a large number of people would not find the provocation of war in the Middle East troubling. The black-and-white view of the world presented by many evangelical preachers allows them to easily fit events of the world into the prophecy of end-times in the Bible, and thereby give their followers "answers" that seem clear and absolute to topics that are far from being either clear or absolute.

What's perhaps most worrisome in all this is not that George W. Bush is a deeply religious man, but rather that he is apparently willing to be swayed by those that would form policy around religious doctrine. With Bush trying to move the management of social programs in the US into the hands of churches and related organizations, it's not exactly a huge leap to suspect that his foreign policy objectives are being influenced by religious interests.

I'm no theologian, but there are enough intersections between Bush's foreign policy and a particularly literalist interpretation of the contents of Book of Revelations to suspect strongly that US activity in the Middle East is currently driven by a feverish desire on the part of some people to bring about their biblical apocalypse.