Onward, Christian soldiers

ST. LOUIS -- The Iraq War cometh and with it lots of worries and imponderables.

There are plenty of questions about the war itself. How quick? How easy? Does Saddam use chemical or biological weapons? Does he blow up the oil fields? Does he lob a scud with or without chemical or biological weapons on Tel Aviv? How many American military casualties? How many Iraqi civilian casualties?

However, this phase is not my biggest worry.

The war may require many years of occupation. Are we there as long as Korea -- half a century? When do Iraqis get fed up with American occupation? How much will it cost? Will Spain, Bulgaria and Cameroon help us? Do we really want any help since we seem to prefer doing it our way?

Don Rumsfeld has the requisite arrogance to be our high commissioner in Iraq. Our U.N. resolution co-sponsor, Spain, wants him to be silenced. He kicked Tony Blair you-know-where, and Blair would like him out of his sight.

However, this phase is not my biggest worry either.

The Christianization and democratization of the Middle East is the mindboggler. Iraq is just the beginning of a sweeping, enduring campaign to use our might to bring Christian democracy to the Middle East. The Perle/Wolfowitz/Kristol doctrine is to use Iraq as the springboard to regime changes throughout the region. It is their perception that, once we use our power to impose Christian democracy in Iraq, the American wind of freedom will transform the globe from Indonesia to Palestine.

Perle, Wolfowitz and Kristol envision the purification of the unwashed, demonic Moslem world. It is superpower arrogance run amok. President Bush is the crusader-in-chief. As a true believer, he is convinced that he is doing God's work to purge the Middle East of its dangerous impurities.

Columnist Thomas Friedman probably knows as much about the Middle East as any other living person. Here is what he evenhandedly writes about the Perle-Wolfowitz-Kristol doctrine as applied in Iraq. You can multiply it 100 times when we move on to other nations:

"Building a decent peace in Iraq will be so much more difficult than the Bush hawks think. Iraq is the Arab Yugoslavia. It is a country, congenitally divided between Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis, that was forged by British power and has never been held together by anything other than an iron fist. Transforming Iraq into a state with an accountable, consensual and decent government would be the biggest, most audacious war of choice any U.S. president has ever made -- because it doesn't just involve getting rid of Saddam, but also building an integrated Iraq for the first time."

Let's be crystal clear about this. Iraq is only step one on the path to the Christian democrization of the Middle East. Iran is next to be dealt with in the Bush second term, if there is one. Our intelligence people have already stated that Iran is developing a nuclear capacity which could lead to nuclear weapons. There is a target for Bush regime change if I ever saw one.

Israel-Palestine is on the back burner. It can wait until the winds of democracy blow westward. No worry that Ariel Sharon is starting up new settlements in the West Bank. Once we bring Christian democracy to Palestine, Israel will gladly give up all its West Bank settlements and will live happily ever after with its democratic neighbor.

Somewhere along the line, we will bring democracy to Saudi Arabia. No problem with this one either. Once women are allowed to drive cars (but only in daylight hours), it will be a piece of cake. Oh, by the way, everyone, including President Bush, has forgotten about Afghanistan. We are doing great there with democracy. President Hamed Karzai presides as mayor of Kabul constantly guarded by U.S. troops. The rest of the country is in anarchy.

The present secretary of state, Colin Powell, is the only semblance of restraint of this madness. But he will be out sometime in the presumed second term.

An unidentified American diplomat is quoted as saying, "These guys at the Pentagon -- Wolfowitz, Perle, Doug Feith -- when they lie in bed at night, they imagine a new book written by one of them or about them called, 'Present at the Recreation.' They want to banish the wimpy Europeanist traditional balance of power, and they use the Iraq seedbed of democracy to impose America's will on the world."

Onward, Christian soldiers.

Thomas Eagleton is a former U.S. senator.