ABSTRACT
“Leadership” becomes a word misused; the new American style is not to lead but to command. Officials and supporters within and of the administration, such as John Bolton, Michael Ledeen, and Bill Kristol, to name only a few, speak openly of taking this “first war” in Iraq to Iran, Syria, North Korea and even the moderate Arab countries. The country that invented the rules no longer plays by them. It diminishes its past leadership of the world in the name of an obsession and a delusion of leadership and hubris. The crucially important concept developed within the highest levels of Christian thinking over the last centuries is that of civilized and largely Christian countries following the theological and practical concepts of the “just war.” With this war against Iraq, the “just war” theories and protections, and the manner in which they were meant to gradually diminish the cruelty of war, are dead, at least for the time being.
