Thoughts on Iraq

Though I opposed the Iraq war, I’ve always tried to take seriously the arguments of the war’s proponents. Nor do I assume that war advocates were arguing in bad faith or from ulterior motives. I’m not a pacifist, nor am I reflexively opposed to the use of American military power. In thinking about these matters I try to be guided by the tradition of just war thinking as it was developed by the Catholic Church, adopted by the magisterial Protestant reformers, and extended and modified by various modern and contemporary thinkers.

That being said, it might be worthwhile to consider what I take to have been one of the strongest arguments for going to war in Iraq, the so-called humanitarian argument.* In essence, proponents of this argument said that the U.S. had the right, if not the obligation, to put an end to Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical rule. This argument appealed to one of the fundamental principles of just war theory: that the protection of the innocent from certain harm can provide a reason for going to war. Saddam certainly posed a threat to the Iraq people, thus it was just to remove his government.

In my view, the problem with this argument is that it failed to heed one of the other essential components of just war: the chance for success in creating a lasting peace. Neither punishing Saddam for crimes he committed in the past nor preventing him from committing future crimes would be sufficient to justify going to war without the additional prospect of creating conditions that would be markedly superior for the people of Iraq. Since war entails significant evil in the form of death and destruction, the good to be achieved has to outweigh this evil for the war to be considered morally licit. If the end result doesn’t differ significantly from the status quo ante we would be guilty of inflicting great evil for the sake of no, or little, discernible gain. In this respect, just war theory dictates that we consider consequences and not just past violations of moral principles.

It’s precisely with respect to having reasonable assurance of success in creating a lasting peace that I think the Iraq war failed the test. Though it would be foolish to offer predictions, right now it seems that the likelihood of a stable, democratic, and somewhat liberal Iraq is a dim prospect indeed. Certainly it’s far less likely than some war supporters had led us to believe. At the very least, it seems no more likely than the prospect of a) a takeover by a secular strongman, b) an all-out civil war among Iraq’s various ethnic and religious factions, or c) the emergence of an Iran-style theocracy. Any of these outcomes seems to have the potential for creating as much suffering as the continued reign of Saddam. That being the case, it’s hard to see how a realistic assessment of the situation beforehand would have justified going to war on purely humanitarian grounds.**

However, the principles outlined above would seem to imply an obligation for the U.S. (preferably working in concert with allies) to pursue every realistic means to foster some kind of stable Iraq that respects basic human rights. In other words, even if the invasion was a mistake, rectifying the mistake probably doesn’t mean simply unilateral withdrawal. Indeed, by going to war we may have incurred a greater obligation to seek a tolerable outcome for the people of Iraq.

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*I won’t address here the arguments for going to war for reasons of national security. Suffice it to say, it seems in retrospect that Iraq posed less of a threat to the U.S. than even war opponents thought at the time.



**I’m not claiming that humanitarian concerns were a primary, or even significant, reason that the Bush administration, with the approval of Congress, decided to go to war. While motives count, they are not the primary consideration in determing the justice of the war itself. It’s quite possible to do the right thing for the wrong reasons.