The Middle East Council of Churches views with disappointment and increasing alarm intensified efforts in the United States to gather support for major military action against Iraq. Apart from its humanitarian concerns for the Iraqi people who, for over a decade, have been ground down by sanctions and daily air raids, the MECC is committed to Iraq not least of all because of the cries of its member churches there for peace and sanity.

From our nearby vantage point, we see the conflict in Iraq as one against the people of that country, the common people, not the politicians or power brokers. The UN sanctions -- themselves a type of violence – have not really touched Iraq's governing elite, but have caused the people untold suffering. For over a decade the Middle East Council of Churches provided ecumenical relief services in Iraq, becoming a channel for international relief and reconstruction.  Now as talk focuses upon escalating this low-intensity war into a full-scale military offensive, the churches in the Middle East are truly alarmed.  

Not only has the sanctions regime failed; that failure is now to be compounded by an initiative that lacks justification and has no discernible or constructive goal. It has no support in the region. All that military offensive will leave behind is ruin and a shattered country. Chaos will ensue. In the meantime, nothing will be done to ameliorate the human suffering that has already scarred and ruined a whole generation of Iraq's youth, caused the death of thousands of infants, destroyed one of the region's most productive and creative middle classes, and left a wasteland, a swirling pool of despair and rage, a time-bomb to bedevil the future. 

We Christians of the Middle East urge the churches of the West, to speak to their governments. The issue to be kept squarely in the forefront is the humanitarian one. There is a whole population of ordinary and decent people whose desire is survival with dignity. Violence will only cause their circumstances to deteriorate further. What is needed is a sustained and determined diplomatic and political effort that engages the Iraqi government directly, and a sustained campaign to re-empower the Iraqi people and restore their dignity. This is the wisdom of the region. From the churches' point of view, it is also consistent with the priorities of the gospel that seeks healing for the nations and dignity for human beings. 

The churches of the Middle East are committed to peace that comes through the power of the Word to establish justice, and champions the cause of the poor and downtrodden. We believe that through peaceful intervention the moral force of truth can break the cycle of violence in Iraq, in Palestine, and throughout the world.

Rev. Dr. Riad Jarjour General
Secretary The Middle East Council of Churches (MECC)