The truth is out there. (Flip Side).

Conspiracy theories have been proliferating worldwide almost as fast as nuclear weapons. The Indonesians are seriously entertaining the idea that the United States bombed those dance bars in Bali as part of a P.R. effort for the war on terrorism. The French have been snapping up a book arguing that the Pentagon blew itself up on 9/11 and that the other plane-bombs were flying under remote control. Many Muslims and Arabs blame the Jews--a.k.a., the well-known Zionist conspiracy--for everything up to and including the weather.

I've been crafting my own conspiracy theory about the upcoming war with Iraq and it goes like this: Al Qaeda is behind the whole thing.

Sounds far-fetched, I know, but ask yourself the venerable question, Qui bono? Who stands to gain from this war? It won't be you or me living in one of Saddam's palaces after the anthrax has been swept out and the torture equipment relocated. Nor are we even likely to benefit at the gas pump, since Exxon Mobil will swallow the difference between the pre- and post-invasion price of Iraqi oil. Few ordinary Americans will get anything out of war, aside from the chance to see their children, should they be servicemen or women, buried with a modicum of pomp.

No, the only clear-cut beneficiary is Al Qaeda. First, because the war on Iraq will distract the United States from the already difficult-to-detect global war on terrorism. Second, because it will contribute mightily to the worldwide Qaeda recruitment effort: Note the recent Pakistani provincial elections, in which the once solidly secular urban elite reacted to U.S. threats of war against Iraq by voting for whacked-out fundamentalist parties. Third, because there's little that Al Qaeda hates more than the secular leaders of largely Muslim states, Saddam included, unless it's Ariel Sharon.

But is Al Qaeda actually directing the war effort? Have they, in other words, infiltrated the White House itself? Any conspiracy theory worth its salt asserts that the enemy is already within: The John Birch Society labeled Eisenhower a Communist agent; our homegrown Nazis identify Washington as the site of the Z.O.G.--Zionist Occupation Government.

I was struggling to work out the Bush-bin Laden connection when--POW!--news came of yet another probable international conspiracy at work: Thanks to Pakistan--which is supposedly our friend and ally in the war on terrorism--the wild-haired dictator of North Korea has, or is about to have, nuclear bombs. We note also that in Kuwait, which owes us big-time for Gulf War I, the locals have taken to shooting Marines. If there is an international anti-American conspiracy, our friends--including Saudi Arabia, home of fifteen out of the nineteen 9/11 terrorists--may well be behind it. And can we really trust Switzerland?

At this point, a cold shiver passed down my back. Could we be surrounded by enemies? Could they, furthermore, have wormed their way to the very top of our government?

You don't need a conspiracy theory to answer the first question. The United States is about as popular today as if it had nuked Bethlehem and was putting the resulting body parts to use as pig swill on our industrialized farms. In The New York Times Magazine, novelist A. S. Byatt observes that the only thing that unites Europeans today is their hostility to the United States, and particularly U.S. belligerence toward Iraq. If we must travel abroad, we are warned not to wear tell-tale items like Reeboks, khakis, and Hawaiian shirts. In fact, it's gotten to the point where the only safe places for a visibly American person to vacation are Yosemite and the Jersey Shore.

As for the question about Al Qaeda's role in directing U.S. foreign policy: Perhaps there are other ways to explain Bush's singular determination to flatten Baghdad even as the evidence piles up that Al Qaeda or something very similar is alive and well and feeling its oats--blowing up the tourist strip in Bali and a French oil tanker off of Yemen.

But it must be said that the President displays the classic signs of brainwashing or sub-cranial chip implantation. How else to account for his serenity in the face of North Korea, compared to his rage at Iraq, which is likely to get nuclear weapons only when they become available from the Sharper Image? Or what about his suppression of the news about North Korea until Congress had passed a resolution endorsing war with Iraq? After all, an attack on atheist North Korea will do nothing to promote Al Qaeda's cause, while the bombardment of Baghdad will have every teenager from Jakarta to Riyadh dreaming of a glorious death by jihad.

But if terrorism is the "weapon of the weak," conspiracy theories are their mythology. When we don't know what's going on, when the policies no longer make sense, we attribute diabolical motivations and supernatural cleverness to the movers-and-shakers. Nothing is changed by these attributions--except that they make us feel pretty clever ourselves.

So, the questions, "Is America surrounded by enemies," and, "Is our president somehow abetting them?" the answers are "yes" and "it sure looks that way."

We don't need a conspiracy theory to explain these dismaying developments; what we need is a conspiracy of our own: Get together with your friends and neighbors to plot what you can do to stop the war on Iraq. We may not achieve that since, after all, Bush won't even listen to his dad. But a gargantuan anti-war movement might at least teach anti-Americans everywhere to distinguish between the U.S. government and us, the American people.

Barbara Ehrenreich is a columnist for The Progressive and the author of "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" (Metropolitan Books, 2001).