In the Iraqi novel, Al- Zaher al-Shagi (The Tormented Flower), a peasant innocently asks the main character, “Why have these jet fighters bombed us! We are just tending our land and farm.” The response is, “This is the very reason they’re bombing you; you have stayed on your land.” The main character in the novel warns that occupiers and oppressors use slogans of liberty and freedom to disguise their true purpose in suppressing and demoralizing the population. Though the novel was written in the early 1980s, it was prophetic in its depiction of what would happen to innocent Iraqis in the future, especially those who dare to love their country.

While the debate in Washington focuses on funding or reducing the level of troops stationed in Iraq, there has been a conspicuous absence of a serious call to an immediate end to the occupation and the freeing of the Iraqi people from this unbearable nightmare of neo-colonization. The latter is the hallmark of neoconservative achievement and is a milestone in their plan to redesign the Middle East. For neoconservatives, incapacitating the Iraqi cultural and political institutions is an essential step for the redrawing of the Middle East map to mirror their interpretations of Biblical prophecies.

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, neoconservative strategist, Joshua Muravchik asserted that neoconservatives are still the only game in town and that more resources must be provided to maintain Iraqi occupation. Neoconservatives believe that concentrated efforts must be made to further turn Iraq into a state of perpetual anarchy. The latest agreement between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to have a formal long-term political and security pact by next year signifies neoconservatives’ tireless drive to deepen chaos and set the stage for a catastrophic future in Iraq.

Lacking moral clarity, patriotism, and independent thinking, the occupation-supported government has joined forces recently with foreign troops in attacking ordinary Iraqi citizens, especially those who have refused to accept the occupation or compromise their liberty. While most Iraqi cities have experienced such attacks, it is in the middle and southern parts that innocent Iraqis have been subjected to cruel treatment. The IPS (Nov. 27) quoted a member of the Sadrist Movement saying that “the Badr Organization is getting the American Army to help detain and kill us because we did not follow the orders given to us to kill our Sunni brothers."

The Los Angeles Times quoted residents of an Iraqi village near Tikrit saying (Oct. 24, 2007), “15 people were killed [by the occupational forces] and that the men were farmers irrigating their fields in the pre-daylight hours.” The foreign forces characterized those who were killed as extremists. Similarly, the occupational forces issued a press release (October 21) stating that they had killed 49 criminals in Sadr City. However, Baghdad and Al-Iraqia television, along with other news channels, showed that the majority of those who were killed and injured were children and women.

In today’s Iraq, the invading forces routinely label innocent people criminals, militants, and terrorists. This gives a comforting cover and justification for murdering them with impunity. Powerless, humiliated, and forcefully suppressed, Iraqis are left wondering whether or not they can exercise their rights to live in safety. Since the 2003 invasion, Christians and Muslims, Arabs, Assyrians, Turkmen and others have been denied their right to express their love for their country or to have any say in determining their future. For most of them, “freedom” is not the ideal which they once dreamed of but merely a speedy transfer to eternal liberty: death.

The Los Angels Times (September 14) reported that the total number slain in Iraq since the 2003 invasion has been more than 1.2 million people. During the last four years, the country has experienced the highest level ever in terms of unemployment; student dropout rates, deterioration of infrastructure especially in education, health, and transportation, inflation and economic stagnation, and lack of electricity and safe water. The UN reported that there are more than 4 million Iraqis who are forced to live as refugees. Furthermore, there has been a wholesale erasing of cherished cultural values and traditions and the well orchestrated destruction of Iraqi’s social fabric.

Many inside and outside Iraq consider the above tragedies to be human and cultural genocide. Nevertheless, the perpetuators of these tragedies have been rewarded. The fact that they are rewarded lends strong ammunition to those who claim that the Iraqi tragedy was planned and deliberate. Iraq, a country of proud people of many accomplishments, rich in history and in resources, has been seen as a threat to the neoconservatives’ design for the Middle East. Targeting its citizens and occupying it, therefore, is viewed as a divine course of action. Regrettably, the occupation of Iraq, while pleasing apocalyptic Christians, radical Jews and Arab totalitarian rulers, has made peace in the region a remote possibility and poisoned the relationship between the Western world and the Arab countries. Indeed, in recent history no event has done more damage to the value of Western civilization ideals as the destruction of Iraq.

In an interview on October 4, 2007, President Bush asserted that “the successes in Iraq have been really quite extraordinary.” Similarly, about two decades before, in 1991, in a speech given at the pro-Israel think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Vice President Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, declared that the war against Iraq had brought stability to the region and that “Israel, from a military standpoint is more secure today than she’s been at any time in the recent past because of the elimination of Iraq’s offensive military threat.” It is for this particular reason that neither the president nor his vice president has been able to understand the catastrophic nature of both wars against the Iraqis.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney are religious people. Both have shown an unwavering commitment to their own beliefs. In fact, their push to use force to remake the Middle East a safe place for the second coming of the Messiah by rooting out “evil elements” is anchored in deeply held Biblical beliefs. This point was made clear in the Jewish Forward (April 9, 2004) when it stated, “Americans may be tempted to wonder why our forces are in Iraq in the first place, but Passover reminds us of what is at stake in the struggle to free Iraq from the rule of chaos and wickedness. . . . Today the legacy of lies remains. The Iraqi capital is so flooded with incredible gossip and insane rumors. . . . . Where you find evil, you find lies. . . . There is a bright, clear demarcation between truth and falsehood, as evident and obvious as the banks of the Euphrates. The biblical imagery serves as a rebuke to those who insist that often truth can’t be distinguished from falsehood.” On April 23, the Forward asserted that “Christians like the president -- no less than Jews-- have found [the Bible] to be a repository of ancient and tested wisdom” in invading Iraq.

Neoconservatives have been effective in using foreign policy as an instrument for fulfilling Biblical prophecies. But when religion becomes the chosen counsel and the foundation for foreign directives, chaos is inevitable. The American people and the rest of the world would be better served if foreign policy were not viewed through a religious prism.