Since September 11th Christian fundamentalist opinion leaders in the U.S. have been indoctrinating the American public to believe that we are engaged in a spiritual war with physical manifestations realized in the so-called Global War On Terror. Many assert that this struggle is not only against a relatively small network of militant Islamic fundamentalists but is ultimately against the Muslim world as a whole, which seeks to conquer the Western world and subjugate it under Islamic religious authority. This belief greatly exaggerates the threat to the West, demonstrates an appalling ignorance of the history of Western relations with the Muslim world and, by fueling the poisonous ideology of religious nationalism, risks realizing a self-fulfilling prophecy of cataclysmic confrontation.

While the challenge presented by Al Qaeda requires a lethal solution in the short term to eliminate security threats to the U.S. and its allies, the longer term challenge remains how to minimize provocations that lead to the rise of such groups and ideologies. This requires first an honest look at Western actions throughout the 20th century and how they have contributed to hostilities between the West and the Muslim world in the current century. An understanding of this history will serve as a roadmap to fundamental foreign policy and domestic energy changes that need to take place in order to disengage from this absurd and unnecessarily expanding conflict.

Israel will remain one of the most frustrating elements of this overall problem in no small part because of the unwillingness of Israeli political leaders to dismantle illegal West Bank settlements and compromise on Jerusalem. Israel's spiritual significance to American Jews, who wield an impressive level of influence throughout the U.S. government relative to their numbers- including within the national security/foreign policy establishment -is also problematic. Even more troubling, however, is Israel's fundamental importance to Christian evangelicals, who are estimated to make up about 25% of the U.S. population. A 2003 poll conducted by the Pew Forum indicates that around 63% of all evangelicals, or more than 16% of the U.S. population, believe Israel fulfills biblical prophecy about the Second Coming of Christ. The Pew Forum estimates that " "traditionalist" evangelicals provided Bush with 27% of his vote total in 2004."

The fact that a voting bloc potentially comprising 16% of the U.S. population considers unquestioning support of Israel a religious obligation is incredibly troubling and problematic due to its inherently faith-based nature. Faith can be remarkably resistant to logic and the rigors of intellectual inquiry and, in the case of Israel's essential importance to Christian fundamentalism, is not likely to cede ground except through a deconstruction of the very foundations of it rather than through debate along the plane of political and moral rationality.

Given the continuing expansion of U.S military intervention in the Muslim world and the political power American evangelicals wield, demonstrated by the election of George W. Bush to office and numerous media reports of evangelicals serving at the highest levels of the U.S. military and intelligence establishment during his tenure, a serious national debate over the future direction of our country appears urgent. The Republican Party, which most evangelicals identify with, has clearly sought to continue to court this voting bloc. Even if this effort can be reduced to pragmatic political calculation (?) the consequently unavoidable interdependence has already become a serious national security liability.