In Makkah at this very moment, some two million pilgrims are praying for peace among nations, peace in Iraq, peace in our homes, peace in our hearts. Not just in Makkah, but all over the world, millions upon millions of Muslims are making the same prayer. And not only Muslims. Millions upon millions of Christians, Jews and others too, in the US, in Europe, everywhere.

And yet because of the Bush administration’s steadfast, arrogant refusal to be swayed from its determination to topple Saddam Hussein, all we can contemplate is a world on the brink of war.

That the Americans have ignored Arab appeals to draw back from the brink and settle this crisis by means other than force does not come as a surprise. Washington only sits down and talks to the Arabs when it wants something from them, not the other way around. It is not US contempt for Arab opinions that astounds. It is the contempt they show for their allies and friends. The Europeans are not traitors or fools, as too many in the media and politics in the US try to make out. If the Germans, the French, the Russians, the Belgians and others all agree that an attack on Iraq is madness at this point in time, the US should listen, not hurl abuse at them. The Europeans are America’s oldest, best and truest friends. If someone cannot listen to the advice of his friends, then he is truly lost.

Washington’s adventurism is a descent into the unknown. It is all tactics and no strategy. It has no plans beyond toppling Saddam Hussein, and after that, nothing more concrete than a vague hope of democracy in the country. It is inexcusable. No government should ever go to war without an endgame in mind.

But it is not what will happen in the days after an invasion that frightens. Saddam Hussein’s regime will probably fall very quickly and whatever fury there may be in the Middle East rapidly subside. It is what happens three or four months afterwards that terrifies. The Iraqi opposition hate each other as much as they hate Saddam Hussein. Without a strong force at the center — and the US cannot afford to remain long — there is a real danger of Iraq falling apart. Who knows where that could take the region. Will it destabilize Arab Gulf states?

There will be dire consequences if the Americans attack Iraq; of that we can be sure. But no one knows what they will be. That includes the US. That is what is so terrifying.

Washington compares Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler and the situation to the run-up to World War II. World War I is a more frightening comparison. It started with ultimatums and troop movements which took on an unstoppable momentum of their own, resulting in the most lunatic, most destructive war the world has ever known. By the time it was over, those Prussian, Russian, Ottoman, and Hapsburg empires that thought they could control events had been swept into the history books and the maps of Europe and the Middle East entirely redrawn. None of that was foreseen in 1914.

There is a chilling feeling that this is August 1914 all over again. Prayers for peace are desperately needed.