The Nation -- A Hundred Peace Movements Bloom

Even with an enemy as easy to hate as Saddam Hussein, the Bush Administration's war plans in Iraq have awakened "huge reservoirs of unease" in the American public, says Peace Action spokesperson Scott Lynch. The sheer breadth of this opposition could help to birth one of the largest antiwar movements in US history--that is, if these politically diverse antiwar eruptions can join forces as a movement at all.

The more likely scenario, according to IPS experts, is a feeble excuse for war, trumped up by the Administration, and lukewarm international backing, with a couple of abstentions or even no votes on the UN Security Council. That result would provide a real challenge for the antiwar movement: to quickly educate against what Wing calls "the big-time propaganda machine that will fall into place" and win the public debate about what constitutes a legitimate war. But the movement would likely be aided by broad popular opposition in Europe and the Muslim world.