On a Mission from God?

So, some Palestinian officials tell BBC documentarians that President Bush once told some Arab leaders God told him to invade Iraq.

UPDATE: Oh no he didn't, says White House.

"President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God,' " said Nabil Shaath, who was the Palestinian foreign minister at the time of a top-level meeting with Bush in June 2003. Mahmoud Abbas, then Palestinian prime minister and now the Palestinian Authority president, was also present for the conversation with Bush.
"God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ...' And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And by God I'm gonna do it," Shaath quotes the president as saying in the three-part series.

Seeing this, I know how it makes me feel. I'm supremely uncomfortable when a political leader says he's doing God's work - especially when it involves armed conflict. Makes you wonder what God will "tell him" to do next.

I thought the story fit in with this Slate essay by John Dickerson that I read yesterday because I know there are some who will read the "God told me to" story and feel reassured. Dickerson describes the rift in the Republican Party between the so-called intellectual conservatives and the religious conservatives about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.

Dickerson describes an uneasy alliance between "right-wing intellectuals, including the neoconservatives whose backing for the Iraq invasion has been so important" and "evangelicals who turned out in such numbers to vote for a man who boasted that he was one of them."

This column reminds me of my concerns that Bush sees Miers as a "stealth" nominee. Blank enough on the surface to confound Democrats in the confirmation process...then set to go off to the far right once on the court.

Bush Said God Told Him to Invade Iraq, Arab leaders say [SF Chronicle]
White House Denies Bush Claimed Divine Inspiration [AFP via Yahoo]
Gods vs. Geeks [Slate]