While most Talk2Action readers are familiar with the growing influence of Christian Zionists and their close relationship with Israel, you may not be aware of the penetration of American evangelicals into Northern Iraq.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Mike Reynolds, a longtime investigative reporter who through his research uncovered the special relationship between Iraqi Kurds and a group of American evangelicals that practices "spiritual warfare," harbors a deep animosity toward Islam, and views the region as the evangelistic final frontier.

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!'

You can read the complete interview at Religion Dispatches: http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/religiousright/1134/med dling_evangelicals/