Last weekend, more than 6 million people demonstrated worldwide, pleading for peace and protesting U.S. plans to wage war against Iraq. The demonstrations, the largest since the Vietnam War, are proof that U.S. President George W. Bush has not convinced the world that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein poses a global threat. Mr. Bush and those who believe that Iraq is a danger must not succumb to anger and arrogance and dismiss the protesters. Rather, they must redouble their efforts to win them over to their cause. A war that is not seen as legitimate would be as great a danger to the world as ignoring the Iraqi threat.
Antiwar protesters took to the streets in more than 600 towns and cities, from Ankara to Canberra. In France, it was estimated that at least 300,000 people protested across the country. In Berlin, half a million people joined the largest protest in Germany since the end of World War II. Other demonstrations occurred in Moscow and Jakarta. In Japan, thousands of protesters rallied and demonstrated in Tokyo and other major cities.
Some of the biggest rallies occurred in countries that have backed the U.S. hard line against Iraq. Two million people joined Spanish protests; about a million people marched through the streets of Rome -- a rebuke to the U.S. and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has supported Mr. Bush. Hundreds of thousands protested in Australia and New Zealand, and it is estimated that at least half a million people demonstrated in London, in addition to smaller protests elsewhere in Britain.