While most Religion Dispatches readers are familiar with the growing influence of Christian Zionists and their close relationship with Israel, few are probably aware of the penetration of American evangelicals into Northern Iraq.

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, a number of fundamentalist Christian organizations announced plans to participate in the future rebuilding effort. At the time, the Rev. Franklin Graham indicated that his organization, Samaritan's Purse, would lead the way.

Graham, the son of the Rev. Billy Graham, who shortly after September 11, got himself into a bit of a pickle by lashing out at all Muslims, famously calling Islam "a very evil and wicked religion," was now poised--with US troops about to march into Baghdad--to organize welcome wagons stuffed with Bibles and bandages.

Around that time, while working on Bad Faith--a yet-to-be-completed book focusing on the financial forces behind the religious right--Mike Reynolds* got wind of the Nashville, Tennessee-based America 21, a nonprofit political action committee that hopes to bring America to God by encouraging "moral leadership from our churches" to be heard "in the halls of Congress and across this nation."

According to Reynolds, an investigative reporter whose work on the religious right has been featured in Rolling Stone, US News & World Report, and 60 Minutes, "the group caught my eye because it was involved with holding support rallies for Judge Roy Moore, who, as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court defied a federal order to remove his 5,300-pound monument of the Ten Commandments from inside the state's judicial building." The statue was later removed from the building and Moore was removed from the bench.

"Later," said Reynolds, "I discovered that America 21 was involved with former Texas Congressman Tom Delay and the Republican Party's uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff."

According to Reynolds, America 21 "was run by an old anti-abortion ambulance-chasing lawyer and lobbyist named J Thomas Smith... [who] was working on behalf of some Christian evangelicals that were looking to set up shop in Kurdistan." Those discoveries led him to Douglas and Marilyn Layton and Servant Group International, a project run out of the Belmont Church in Nashville.

While Franklin Graham was preparing to provide relief to beleaguered Iraqis (and to find Christian converts), Servant Group International had already been in Iraq for more than ten years. Again, Reynolds:

In September 2003, four months after US forces defeated Saddam Hussein, 350 evangelical pastors and church leaders assembled in Kirkuk, welcomed by Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani. During the gathering, George Grant, the American director of the Classical School of The Medes, declared that 'Jesus Christ is Lord over all things; He is Lord over every Mullah, every Ayatollah, every Imam, and every Mahdi pretender; He is Lord over the whole of the earth, even Iraq!'

In a recent interview, Reynolds discussed the curiously strong presence that Christian evangelicals have established in Northern Iraq:

How did Christian evangelicals get so deeply involved with the Kurds?

You might say that it started after Saddam Hussein's 1988 assault on the Kurds, which culminated in the chemical weapon attack that killed thousands in the village of Halabja. Some 14,000 refugees from Kurdistan made their way to Nashville, Tennessee, now home to the largest Kurdish population in the nation. Four years later, a group of Nashville evangelical Dominionists known as Servant Group International, departed from the Belmont Church--a megachurch occupying several blocks on Music Square--making their way to the mountains of northern Iraq where they set up shop.

Why is Kurdistan important to Christian evangelicals?

For evangelicals, Northern Iraq is prime real estate in what they call the "10/40 Window," which is a geographical delineation at 10 and 40 degrees North latitude that opens across North Africa, through the Middle East, India and closes in Indonesia. The concept originated in 1991 with Argentine evangelist Luis Bush, and was expanded upon by his fellow New Apostolics C. Peter Wagner and George Otis Jr. These zealous dominionists called it the "primary spiritual battleground in the world today...the Church's final evangelistic frontier."

When the "spiritual warriors" of Servant Group International headed out of Nashville for Kurdistan it was under this banner. With the compliance of the Barzani-led KRG and a sympathetic Bush Administration, these US evangelicals have established a solid base of operations in the Middle East for their aggressive and potentially inflammable brand of proselytizing. With tensions ratcheting up between the Kurds and Iraqi Sunnis over who will control the oil-rich regions of Kirkuk and the Nineveh plain, having these American end-time evangelicals trying to convert Muslims in Kurdistan with the blessings of the KRG is, as a longtime Kurdistan expert told me, "like striking matches in a room full of gasoline."

What was Servant Group International up to?

The folks from Belmont Church had a very big agenda. They brought with them Kurdish-language Bibles, medical equipment, lots of money, and a long-range plan to establish their "Father's Kingdom" between the Turkish border and Iran. Since the time of its arrival in Northern Iraq, Servant Group International has widened its presence, establishing bases in Turkey, Liberia, Indonesia, Germany, and Norway.

Can you describe how Servant Group International operates?

What is especially distinctive about SGI--and its partners--is its development of a military model of evangelism ('spiritual warfare'), which includes covert action tactics ('tentmaking'), intelligence gathering ('spiritual mapping'). They have an ingrained animosity to Islam, and their Dominionist 'Kingdom Now' worldview, is a fusion of neo-Calvinist authoritarianism and 'New Apostolic' Pentecostalism, a cult-like millenarian sect of the Assemblies of God led by self-anointed 'apostles' and 'prophets.' Interestingly enough, its best-known adherent is Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

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About author Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His Conservative Watch columns document the strategies, players, institutions, victories and defeats of the American Right.