Would a war against Iraq be just?

Sydney
25 August 2002

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Would a war against Iraq be just?

A toy pistol is held aloft during a demonstration against US and Britishled bombing raids on targets near Baghdad

By Bruce Duncan

If key members of the government are to be believed, Australia seems headed for war against Iraq. Yet in contrast to the debate leading up to the 1991 war against Iraq, there has been practically no mention of the traditional conditions for waging war.

Why is this? I would suggest the reason is that just-war theory does not support a new war against Iraq.

Application of the just-war criteria is seldom clear-cut, but if we have learned anything from the wars of the last century, it is that we should be quite certain that war is the very last resort.

War is rarely an easy option, can inflict great hardship on our own military and their families even over generations, involves killing and destruction on sometimes a vast scale, and often leads to unpredictable consequences.

In a democracy, public debate should be open, vigorous and exacting.

We have only to think of the lies and manipulation of public opinion at the time of the Vietnam War to steel our determination not again to be misled, at the cost of so many lives.

The Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, is arguing that we will face a war against Iraq unless it allows UN inspectors to determine that it is not developing weapons of mass destruction. He talked of war as a last resort, but that Australia would consider any US request for assistance against Iraq.

He warned “that only a fool would support a policy of appeasement” of Iraq, and insisted that the world must enforce international law and UN resolutions against that country.

“The world cannot and must not stand idly by while Iraq develops and manufactures weapons of mass destruction” (Australian 17/7).

The Minister for Defence, Senator Hill, even declared that Australia would join the US in a preemptive first strike against Baghdad (Sydney Morning Herald 19/6).

How do these positions stand up against the just-war criteria?

JUST CAUSE?

The US-led war against Iraq in 1991 in defence of Kuwait was widely accepted as meeting the conditions of a just war.

Currently, however, there is no just cause like this. As the military historian, John Keegan, conceded recently, there is no casus belli (Age 17/7).

Iraq has not attacked any other country. Nor has there been any evidence produced that Iraq was connected with the al Qaeda attacks on the US.

Ironically US animosity is directed against the secularist regime in Iraq, while Saudi Arabia, where the militant Islamist groups were spawned and funded, remains an ally.

We are told that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction, but were Saddam to use them against another country, he would invite massive and rapid retaliation.

However, he might well use them if he faced certain and imminent defeat, and decided to ‘go out with a bang’.

This is precisely the scenario which is developing, and hence western military intervention may actually provoke the outcome it is ostensibly portending to prevent.

Indeed, the US warned Britain earlier this year that an attack on Iraq was likely to promote a biological counterattac.

kDoes its possessing such weapons justify war against Iraq? Mr Downer recalled that Saddam used chemical weapons against the Kurds (in March 1988, killing 5000) and Iranian troops, but omitted to mention that at the time he was a US ally, and that the US and other western countries continued to supply him with plans and the means to make such weapons until he invaded Kuwait, threatening western oil supplies.

No wonder Muslim nations see western condemnation of Iraq on human rights’ grounds as deeply hypocritical.

Does the possession of such weapons mean that the US intends to intervene militarily in other countries with such weapons, notably North Korea, India and Pakistan, to say nothing of Israel and China? Patently not.

These countries see such weapons of mass destruction as a means of deterrence, as presumably does Iraq.

Resumption of weapons’ inspections would allow the world to restrict or eliminate Iraq’s capability in such weapons, and would allow the process of containment of Iraq to continue. Even without weapons’ inspectors, and presuming that Iraq did develop such weapons, even nuclear weapons, it is hard to see how this over-rides the presumption against war.

RIGHT AUTHORITY

Saddam has been rightly condemned as a war criminal guilty of great atrocities, even against his own people.

But does this give any western power the right to launch war against Iraq? Does this mean the US is claiming a right to intervene militarily in any country with such a ruler or regime? This would mean jettisoning the system of international law and the conflict resolution processes around the UN.

One would have to question whether this met the just-war criteria of acting with right authority, which ideally should come from the UN.

FIRST STRIKE

President Bush recently declared that the US henceforth would adopt a first-strike response to threats against it.

The Australian Minister for Defence, Senator Hill, supported this shift in military strategy, but the implications are quite alarming.

First, it means abandoning the whole deterrence strategy that brought some stability and predictability to the Cold War, allowing time for a peaceful resolution.

The first-strike doctrine removes this element of predictability and greatly increases the likelihood of conflict as decisions may have to be made rapidly under intense pressure on the basis of skimpy and unreliable information.

Second, the first-strike doctrine means that the US would presumably be acting unilaterally, assuming an imperial role as the world’s dominant superpower.

In this case, it would be squandering a unique opportunity to nurture a world culture based on the values of liberal democracy in a firm framework of international governance.

DOUBLE STANDARDS

As was pointed out in The Catholic Weekly editorial (Sanctions on Iraq, CW 4/8), the excessively stringent economic sanctions in Iraq resulted in the deaths of half a million children under the age of five by August 1999, according to a UNICEF report.

The exact figures are difficult to determine and are disputed. However, there is no doubt that huge numbers of innocent civilians died, despite the repeated pleas of the Pope and other religious and world leaders to ease the sanctions.

The new so-called ‘smart’ sanctions try to avoid such catastrophic results, although Saddam himself must take much of the blame for the huge death-toll.

Nevertheless, the western sanctions were unnecessarily harsh and, in the view of many, amount to a war crime which demands thorough investigation. The silence of our political leaders and media about all this is thunderous.

The most glaring instance of double standards is, of course, US policy towards Israel which, with billions of dollars of US aid, has continued to expand its settlements through the occupied West Bank. Had the positions been reversed, would the US have tolerated and helped fund continual harassment of Israelis, with Palestinian helicopter gunships, fighter aircraft and tanks firing into civilian areas? Such a disproportionate use of military force does not justify Palestinian militants murderously targeting innocent civilians. But it is no wonder so many people in the Middle East feel intense outrage about what they perceive as double standards when the US ignores UN resolutions on Israel but invokes them to support war against Iraq.

CLOSE ALLY

As a close ally, Australia has an added responsibility to scrutinise US decisions on Iraq carefully against the just-war criteria. What has been alarming, though, is the way our political leaders have talked up the prospect of war, encouraging a hawkish outcome to the US debate.

Australia should be offering genuinely independent advice to its ally, urging caution and moderation, especially when most European leaders oppose US military intervention.

Is the Australian government now intending to ‘go it alone’ with the United States (and perhaps Britain) against Iraq? It would be truly lamentable for Australian politicians to exploit the Iraq war for partisan political objectives.

* Bruce Duncan CSsR lectures in war and peace studies at Yarra Theological Union in Melbourne and works as a consultant at Catholic Social Services Victoria.