The Iraq crisis is no longer about stopping Iraq. It is about stopping the United States.

This is the real significance of what is going on now at the United Nations, of the peace marches around the world, of the political turmoil that rocks staunchly pro-U.S. leaders such as Britain's Tony Blair and Australia's John Howard.

Most countries outside the U.S. are no longer worried about rogue Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. They are worried about rogue American President George W. Bush.

There are no real parallels with World War II. Germany and Japan launched wars of aggression against us, and their systems and ideologies were thoroughly discredited when the war ended. They had no international support. They were also distinct, ancient and ethnically near-homogenous nations.

This time, it is far more likely that the worst part of the war for America will begin when the shooting stops. We launch a war on Iraq at a time when we are widely perceived by many Muslims as being at war against Islam itself. We then will fulfill the prediction of fundamentalist imams who have preached that the “crusaders” were coming to destroy their people and their faith.

We will send untold thousands of angry young Arabs and other Muslims scurrying to our worst enemies. We may destabilize surrounding governments, such as Pakistan, and risk their being toppled by angry fundamentalists.

Worse, we will have at last made the United Nations irrelevant by this show of contempt for that body and for world opinion. For this is not a case of our country being suddenly or deliberately attacked. Nor was it a case, like with Vietnam or Korea, where foreign governments, however flawed, asked for our military assistance. ...

Yes, it is a lovely world the president’s men are building, with the aid of a (mostly) disgracefully silent opposition party and an appalling sheeplike media.

So march and protest and wear your NO WAR buttons, but remember that the scariest thing about our leader is that, he, like many reformed drunks who have found religion, is sure that he is right. But I wonder if he knows that when Constantinople, the last remnant of the Roman Empire, fell, its peoples had long since become Christian, just like Dubya. And the Muslims killed them, just the same.