Did George Bush invade Iraq to fulfil Bible prophecy?

A baffling call with Jacques Chirac

One of the odder episodes of George W. Bush’s presidency was the claim that he decided to invade Iraq on the basis of Biblical prophecies about the end of the world.

It is said that Bush mentioned Gog and Magog - two names associated with the end times - in a phone call with the French president, Jacques Chirac, in February 2003. Bush reportedly told Chirac that Gog and Magog were ‘at work’ in the Middle East.

A bizarre claim? Yes. But it is surprisingly well sourced. It can’t be dismissed as internet legend.

Who are Gog and Magog?

Gog and Magog are referred to in the writings of Ezekiel, an ancient Hebrew prophet who lived in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE.

Ezekiel wrote of a leader called Gog who would lead hostile tribes from the land of Magog against the people of Israel, only to face a terrible defeat at the hands of Jehovah. The result would be a epic disaster:

And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord God, that my fury shall come up in my face. For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; so that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord God: every man’s sword shall be against his brother. And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.

‘Gog and Magog’ subsequently came to be interpreted as two people or nations rather than a person and a place. By the time that the New Testament was written, they were being identified as the sinful nations who would fight against the Christians on Satan’s behalf at the end of the world:

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: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

Gosh.

There is a tradition in later Christian culture of identifying Gog and Magog with whoever the main enemies of the day are, from the Vikings to Genghis Khan. The legend has also evolved in other directions. For example, the mythical protectors of the City of London are the giants Gog and Magog, who to this day are carried in effigy at the Lord Mayor’s Show.

Bush’s phone call

The story of Bush’s phone call with Chirac first surfaced in September 2007 in Allez Savoir!, the magazine of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. It was reported that a professor of Old Testament studies at the university, Thomas Römer, had advised the French government on the significance of Gog and Magog in 2003. It seems that the request for advice was initially directed by Chirac’s staff to the Fédération Protestante de France, who in turn contacted Römer.

The story was seemingly confirmed in a 2009 book by Jean-Claude Maurice, a French journalist who had direct access to Chirac. It was then revived in a book by the American journalist Kurt Eichenwald in 2012. A professor at the State University of New York, Stephen Spector, investigated the claim in an academic article published in 2013 and concluded that it was true.

As for Chirac himself, he commented in his memoirs that Bush gave the impression when he spoke to him that he was on ‘almost a historical and quasi-mystical mission’. This may be an oblique confirmation of the story. But it may not be.

Is it true?

Could the president of a superpower really have been reckless enough to start a war based on his reading of an ancient apocalyptic prophecy?

The story certainly merits suspicion. It fits a bit too neatly with Bush’s reputation as a stupid man with a stupid religion who did stupid things for stupid reasons.

And that reputation is by no means undeserved.

But the story comes across as a clumsy attempt to play on Bush’s reputation as a dimwitted Christian bigot. It reads like the sort of thing that a European liberal like me would think that Dubya ought to have done.

And yet it is very well sourced. This more than just tabloid gossip.

Perhaps Chirac’s camp found it politically convenient to make up an embarrassing story about a political opponent - but then why go to the length of obtaining an expert opinion on apocalyptic theology?

American officials who listened to Bush’s calls with Chirac have firmly denied the story.

Are they lying to protect their former boss? It would be easy to assume so. But Bush has been out of power for a long time, and if the story was true you’d think that at least one of them would have gone public by now. It would be an interesting story to put in a book, or to pass to a friendly journalist.

Bush himself repeatedly denied that religion was behind his decision to invade Iraq. But then he would say that, wouldn’t he?

And yet... it doesn’t sound like Bush.

Bush probably is a believing Christian, in his own shallow way. Sources in the public domain suggest that he probably prayed while in office and believed that God guided his actions in some way.

How far Bush’s religion actually influenced his specific policies is another question. It has been argued that his socially conservative positions on issues like abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research tended to align with what was electorally convenient for him - and that sometimes, on closer inspection, they fell short of what actual Biblical fundamentalists wanted him to do.

There is one possible parallel in Bush’s record to what he reportedly said to Chirac. He apparently told Palestinian leaders in 2003 that God had guided him to attack al-Qaida and then Iraq. Exactly what he said is a matter of dispute. Even if he did claim to have received divine guidance, however, there is no indication that he brought up anything as specific as the Gog and Magog prophecy.

Indeed, there is no reason to believe that Bush has any interest at all in the details of apocalyptic prophecies. Aside from the conversation with Chirac, he is not recorded as having said anything on the subject to anyone else, ever - in public or in private.

Finally, for what it’s worth, the Gog and Magog prophecy doesn’t fit with what was happening in the Middle East at the time. The prophecy is quite clearly about a land invasion of Israel. But no-one - not even the Bush administration’s propagandists - was claiming in 2003 that Saddam was planning on that. There were spurious allegations about Iraq being involved in international jihadi terrorism; but nothing about a coming war with Israel.

So what happened?

I’m inclined to believe that Bush made a passing rhetorical reference to Gog and Magog in his call with Chirac, without seriously meaning that he believed that the prophecy of Ezekiel was being literally fulfilled.

There is no reason to believe that Bush cares about apocalyptic theology. Even if he does, not even Dubya is enough of an idiot to bring the subject up with Jacques Chirac in a highly sensitive diplomatic conversation about an important foreign policy issue.

So why would he mention the names Gog and Magog?

There is a strange clue from Bush’s past.

When he was a student at Yale, he was initiated into the notorious Skull and Bones fraternity - a group which is associated with various lurid speculations and conspiracy theories. We need not go into any of that here.

The point is that Gog and Magog are apparently insider terms used by members of the fraternity. Indeed, it is rumoured that George Bush Sr was given the name Magog within the group because of his epic prowess with women. Bush Jr might have had Gog and Magog in his mind not because he was spending his time in the Oval Office studying ancient apocalyptic texts but because he had been familiar with the names as slang terms since his student days.

Beyond that... who knows? We will probably have to wait for the archives to be opened - if any of us are still around at that point.