Scotland 1, England 0

"The national memorial service for the dead of the Iraq war was not the service of thanksgiving for which one imprudent government minister had once called. Still less was it the victory parade that the flag-waving tabloids reflexively demanded. It was an act of solemn remembrance for our own dead and for the dead of all the nations - Iraq included - held with minimal fanfare in a subdued nation. Some of the bereaved stayed away. Some attended with a determined pride. Others came unreconciled, anxious that those who led us into war should witness their unassuaged pain." - The Guardian [London], October 11 2003

In November, British prime minister Tony Blair said that the task in Iraq now is not to argue about what has been but to work for the future.

Alan Macdonald, convener of the Church of Scotland's church and nation committee, disagreed. "We believe that a just and peaceful future can only be reached by a truthful confrontation and acknowledgement of the past," Macdonald said.

He welcomed George W Bush's state visit to the UK as a chance for him to give a convincing explanation of the war against Iraq and "to demonstrate the kind of international cooperation his administration has found so difficult".

Bush didn't.

Six months earlier, introducing his committee's report on Iraq to the Church of Scotland's general assembly, Macdonald said that "along with other denominations in the UK we spoke out because we believed the war to be wrong and unnecessary".

The report describes the war as significant, not only in regard to "the removal of an evil dictator who had inflicted appalling suffering on his own people", but also for Middle East peace, the relations between western powers and the Arab states, international law, and world peace generally.

The general assembly regretted "the circumstances in which war against Iraq was commenced", and called on the UK government "in the context of its future foreign policy to adhere to international law".

The language is formal and courteous, but the message is unambiguous: attacking Iraq makes Tony Blair a criminal.

The Church of Scotland is a national church. It is sometimes able to speak for the people, and in Scotland the people were massively opposed to the war.

The Church of England is an established church, and is sometimes required to be the state at prayer. Ever since the Falklands war, it has been chary of this role.

So no cheerleading in the service of remembrance for Iraq hosted by St Paul's cathedral in London on October 10. At its centre was a rite of remembrance that encompassed not only the British and US dead but also the Iraqi dead, military and civilian - as many as 11,000, by the latest count - and fallen peacekeepers and relief workers.

"I am not sure we have prayed so widely before," the cathedral's dean John Moses said. "I don't think in today's world at a national service we can just behave like little Brits."

It was the Archbishop of Canterbury in his sermon who blew it.

Rowan Williams is a subtle and learned theologian who earlier in the year had described war with Iraq as "unacceptable". But none of that saved him. He began by quoting Charles Péguy:

"Not long before the first world war, a French poet, who was to be one of the earliest casualties of that conflict, wrote that "everything begins with mysticism and ends with politics'. People have argued a good deal over what he meant. Is he saying that every human story starts with vision and hope and love and deteriorates into conflicts and compromises? Or that you have to move on from fine words and ideals and make things change for the better in the "real' world?"

"...When wars begin, it's often said that it's no good raising abstract objections: if you care about justice and security, you have a duty to do all you can to advance or protect them by any legitimate means - to be ready to pay the price of your fine words. Then, as wars develop and when wars end, it's often said that what happens shows how bright ideals get tarnished as the fight against injustice breeds its own new problems..."

"...As we look out at a still uncertain and dangerous landscape, as we recall the soldiers and civilians killed since the direct military campaign ended, as we think of the UN personnel and the relief workers who have died, we have to acknowledge that moral vision is harder to convert into reality than we should like."

What is wrong with this should be obvious even to a subtle mind. Péguy is wrong. Not everything begins with mysticism or moral vision. The Great War that killed him didn't, and neither did Iraq.

Bush and the neoconservatives that bestride his administration were not moved by justice or security, but by overwhelming power: if you have it, flaunt it.

"Full spectrum dominance" is the technical term deployed by the US military, and parsed in English as the new American empire. War in Iraq was not necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein; but it was necessary to give the rest of the world an object lesson in American might.

Páraic Réamonn