Some years ago, one of the best psychics I have ever known, a teenaged boy with a stunning clairvoyance, a natural and spontaneous channel, spoke to me of "the war that would not happen." We were in my kitchen, discussing, as we always were, metaphysics and prophecy, and his eyes took on that far away look that characterizes preternatural vision. He spoke of armies amassed, as if for war. For all the world, he said, it would look as if war was about to begin. "But, then," he said, "it all just stops." How it would stop, he did not know. Diplomacy? Uprising? Deus ex machina? Who could say. But, war, he was certain would be prevented.

For more than a year, as I have watched the drive for war in Iraq, I have become convinced that it is that standoff that my friend was witnessing all those years ago. I think that for a number of reasons. For starters, it has already been prevented many times over. The Bush Administration has been actively planning this war since September 11, 2001, but have been repeatedly rebuffed and thwarted. From Vice President Cheney's rejection by Middle East leaders last spring, to the mass international protests, to the current UN stand-off, the resistance to this war is greater and has more momentum than does their drive for it. The Bush Administration does not give up easily. They have spunk. I'll give them that. But has a war ever had such a long, slow build-up? One thing is abundantly clear. They are working against the Tao.

That the world does not want this war, is clear. Another path to solving the Iraq crisis is called for. Our evolution as a planet and a people has taken us beyond the need for such conflagrations. The formation of the United Nations, and the establishment of a body of International Law, is the embodiment of the shifts in awareness humanity has already achieved. These laws prohibit the wars of conquest that characterize much of human history. We are not Vikings or Huns plundering and pillaging. Nor, are we colonial empires, waging wars for territory and resources. That the majority, even in the United States, want UN approval, in spite of our administration's forceful unilateralism, is a clear demonstration of how far we have evolved past beliefs of tribal supremacy and towards a knowledge that we are part of a world community.

Early last fall, I threw out a tarot spread on a potential war in Iraq. In the outcome position was the major aracana card, the Tower. The Tower, in the Motherpeace deck, with it's depiction of the Hindu Goddess Kali, represents an overthrow of the ego, an emergence of divine self-hood.

The possibility of transformation is the message of the Goddess, the feminine force of healing. Kali, with her sword raised and her red tongue hanging out, challenges us to mobilize our energy and learn to act right. Let the old forms shatter, she demands; let the truth shine through us and destroy what is false. She cuts away the past and invites us to create with her a future that is tolerable to the human soul, where quality of life is more important than mere existence. Kali is a vision of outrage -- she represents the part of us that knows we must have more dignity and truth, or die.
-- Motherpeace: A Way to the Goddess through Myth, Art, and Tarot by Vicki Noble

While, certainly, the appearance of the Tower in this reading allows for the onset of military conflict, it insures that such aggression will result in a dramatic restructuring of power all over the globe. That restructuring is already underway. In short, the popular rebellion we are seeing now, all over the world, is the Tower.

With their continued drive for a war that no one wants, the Bush administration, and the handful of other world leaders who follow, are organizing their own destruction. The largest protests, on the weekend of February 15, were in countries that have aligned themselves behind this effort. Madrid saw the greatest turnout (2 million), then Barcelona (1.3 million), Rome (1 million), and London (750,000 -1 million), where a beleaguered Tony Blair is opposed by roughly 85% of the population, and the bulk of his own Labour Party. Blair's is a cataclysmic political failure.

In Blair's Britain, The New York Times notes, "The breadth and magnitude of the demonstrations opened a rift between ruler and the ruled, convincing many that that street protest had overtaken conventional democracy in expressing the popular will." In the weeks since, Labour MP's have resigned, with more promising to follow if war is undertaken without a clear UN mandate. And now, reports that an influential Labour Party veteran is calling for the Prime Minister’s resignation.

It has been said that fads come from the top down, trends from the ground up. What we are witnessing is a trend. The disconnect between the political power structures and the will of the people is becoming increasingly obvious. As The New York Times put it, "The fracturing of the Western alliance over Iraq and the huge antiwar demonstrations around the world this weekend are reminders that there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion."

At this point, it appears that for this war to occur, it will be a unilateral effort, Mr. Bush's "coalition of the billing." The long-term ramifications are too horrible to contemplate. Even if the war is short and effective, it will feed anti-American outrage across the globe. The US will be seen as colonial imperialists occupying a Persian Gulf nation. The Middle East will become even more unstable. Terrorism will increase. Having burned so many bridges, how much allied help will we be able to count on in the "war on terror?" This is only one scenario for an aftermath leading to the Apocalypse, but there are very few potential futures, in which the after-effects are not worse than the war.

Whatever happens in the coming weeks, one thing is clear. The world will be irrevocably changed. Some time ago, it occurred to me that Iraq was Bush's Moby Dick. In his quest for the great leviathan, he has ignored a failing economy, an emerging threat from North Korea, and his own falling poll numbers. He has wagered all of his political capital on success in Iraq. If war in Iraq is successful, readers of the PNAC know, that it is only the opening salvo in a plan for a global Pax Americana. If they get that far, they will ultimately learn what all empires learn. When you take on the world, the world eventually wins. A very good history of failed Western imperium in the Middle East can be found here. A bit closer to home, the United States of America stands as a shining example of rebellion against empire. The lesson of history is that, as an empire expands, the center cannot hold, and it falls in ignominious defeat. The ship will sink. Or, to return to our earlier analogy, the Tower will shatter.