A calamity faces our global future because fate has placed men of regrettable inadequacy in positions of power.

President George W Bush , a conservative Christian, hasn’t the intelligence, experience or vision to guide the world in this critical time. He relies on arrogant advisers motivated by power, greed (oil) and political religions (conservative Christianity and Zionism).

The President made a fatal misjudgement after September 11. In the heightened war against terrorism, he should have dealt with the root cause — Israel’s occupation of Palestine. No American leader has yet had the courage to order the aggressor to hand back the stolen goods.

Instead, Afghanistan suffered a brutal onslaught in a failed bid to seize the dreaded Osama bin Laden. More people were slaughtered than on September 11, and the outcome has been twofold:

1. The advent of limited normality in Kabul.

2. No improvement in the rest of the country. Instead of the Taliban, the Afghanis are now dominated by ruthless war lords, financed by Washington and enriching themselves further with renewed heroin production (banned by the Taliban).

Now Mr Bush is moving from one distaster to another.

Washington’s grand plan is total dominance in the Middle East and, in particular, control of Iraqi oil. Crippling Sadam Hussain has been a long-established aim on the strategic and personal level ("That man tried to kill my father").

The White House team maintains the closest personal links with Israel — the only nation under any threat from Saddam and the one to benefit most in the event of military victory. Some of Mr Bush’s key defense advisers were actually employed by former Foreign Minister Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Presidential spokesman is reportedly a joint American/Israeli citizen.

But Washinton’s anti-Iraqi logic is blatantly flawed. Saddam has caused no outbursts since the Gulf War— he has been "contained", just as the Soviets were kept in place for the 45 years of the Cold War.

The American performance in the Security Council pantomime has been notably unimpressive. The "show and tell" presentation by Mr Colin Powell was both misleading and inaccurate. Washington’s cause has been further diminished by constant bullying, plus warnings that any French or Russian veto would permanently cripple the Council’s effectiveness. This conclusion does not acknowledge the body’s past resilience — the fact that on 34 occasions, the US has applied the veto — against every other member — when resolutions repeatedly condemned Israeli aggression.

The crisis in Washington is heightened for Australians by similarities with our leadership in Canberra. The Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, is another conservative Christian. He emerges from the background of a middle-class suburban lawyer, and it shows. He is comfortable in his AngloCeltic environment, at home and abroad. But he has revealed a regrettable lack of understanding, appreciation and, in fact, enjoyment of our Asian neighbourhood. This has put Australians at grave risk. By deciding to link Australia enthusiastically to the future security of American power, he has isolated us from all our neighbours. Once more we are the white island in an Asian sea.

Asians — and indeed a majority of Australians — are at a loss to understand why we have stretched our military resources to a war in far-away Iraq, where our troops run not only the risk of death but a possibility of being charged as international war criminals.

Australia’s priority should have been the war against terrorism here in our Region, specially after the Bali disaster. Our allegiance to Washington is almost certain to provoke terrorists into action again - this time on our shores.

We are told about "weapons of mass destruction", yet Saddam Hussain is no threat, certainly not to Australia. But North Korea does possess a nuclear capacity, with the Californian coast and Darwin possibly soon within range. This mean that President Kim Jong-il is already a global menace — that label Mr Bush (and Mr Howard) have tried unconvincingly to pin on Saddam Hussein.

We are being lead into a war that will result in thousands of victims. This will almost certainly be followed by global chaos — when the axis of AngloCeltic-led arrogance will be met by revenge on a colossal and on-going scale.

The world may never be the same. And Messrs Bush and Howard face the prospect of being judged harshly by history in the years ahead.