A Thinking Reed

Iraq and just war, redux

Written by

Lee M.

in

At Right Reason, philosopher Edward Feser argues, contra paleoconservative critics, that the Iraq war was “at the very least defensible from the point of view of traditional just war theory” (here and here with a third post to come, I think).

I haven’t had a chance to read through Prof. Feser’s argument, but it appears to be a serious and well thought-out one.

Just to refresh our memories, though, my reasons for opposing the Iraq war were primarily that I didn’t think, based on what we were told, that the Iraqi regime posed a serious enough threat to justify war, both in terms of the destruction and death that would be wrought on the Iraqi people and the lives and resources that the U.S. would have to devote to such an undertaking.

As a side note, assuming that war is ever justified, are there some cases where war is permissible but not obligatory? Or do wars always fall into the category of obligatory or forbidden? In other words, can there truly be justified discretionary wars?

UPDATE: See Brandon‘s response to Feser here. I think his point 2 in particular is one that is frequently ignored or distorted by defenders of the decision to go to war.

Comments

3 responses to “Iraq and just war, redux”

  1. Thomas Adams

    Lee, I read the same post and had a similar reaction. In my opinion, a just war is not necessarily an obligatory war, and I feel confident is saying that the Iraq War was not necessary. In fact, this endless debate concerning whether or not the Iraq War is a “just war” strikes me as an attempt by neocons to avoid dealing with the real issue at stake here – the incompetence and short-sightedness of the Bush Administration in executing the war. At this stage in the debacle, who really cares whether the war is considered “just” by “traditional Catholic” standards? Let’s just try to find a way out of this mess!!

    Reply
  2. Gaius

    Lee, help out a little. Why do you think you need to ask?

    In the first part of Feser’s discussion, while guoting various authors on what is a just case, several circumstances are alluded to in which a state may justly make war, but only one in which a state must do so.

    That is when a state is obligated to come to the aid of another by treaty, in case the other undertakes a just war.

    Personally, apart from neocon outright lying about the objective in the runup to the war, I think the case for Iraq fails most clearly in connection with the issues raised in Feser’s second post.

    Proportionality, prospect of success, etc. GW and his gang were mistakenly optimistic in connection with all of this, both (probably) in re their real war aims and in re their alleged war aims.

    In objective fact, these conditions were simply not met, and were known by many not to be met, who warned them and all of us of the disaster that would follow and the enormity of the destruction and cost to us and the Iraqis.

    Reply
  3. Lee

    The reason I asked was really idle curiousity, but I can see how it might make a difference in the real world.

    I take it, for instance, that there are cases where a state can be obliged to go to war. For instance, in the case of a direct invasion of its territory I think we’d all agree that there’s at least a prima facie obligation to mount a defense.

    Likewise there are clearly cases where it’s impermissible to go to war. (Naked aggression, etc.)

    But what about a case like, say, genocide in a foreign country? Does that create an obligation for other countries to intervene, or does it just permit them to? Or are there forbidden from intervening?

    It seems strange to say that rights violations in one place can activate an obligation to go to war, whereas other (perhaps much worse) rights-violations elsewhere may only create a condition of permissibility w/r/t going to war.

    Reply

Leave a reply to Thomas Adams Cancel reply

More posts