Gog and Magog

Read an interesting story here by Clive Hamilton about George W. Bush and the religious motives which some think drove him into the Iraq War. Tantalizer:

In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the
Willing, President Bush spoke to France’s President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a
story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle
East and how they must be defeated.

In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who
are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped. The
Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy:

“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of
his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four
quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle … and
fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”

Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling
Chirac:

“This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to
erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins”.

The story of the conversation emerged only because the Elysée Palace,
baffled by Bush’s words, sought advice from Thomas Römer, a professor of
theology at the University of Lausanne. Four years later, Römer gave an account
in the September 2007 issue of the university’s review, Allez savoir. The article apparently went unnoticed, although it was referred to in a
French newspaper.