Just war

Does the Iraq casus belli meet the criteria of philosophical, religious and political justice? Does it even matter any more?

The debate over the morality of the Iraq intervention may be reignited this week with the publication of Just War, a book by Lord Charles Guthrie, the former head of the UK Armed Forces and Sir Michael Quinlan, a distinguished former defence strategist.

A just cause?

The book seeks to codify a set of rules for a just war, thus providing touchstones for national leaders contemplating military action. Its headings: Just Cause; Proportionate Cause; Right Intention; Right Authority; Reasonable Prospect of Success; Last Resort, consider the right to resort to armed force -- or jus ad bellum -- formerly defined by the likes of Cicero and Thomas Aquinas.

There will be argument that the 2003 invasion of Iraq failed to satisfy all six criteria. Three factors are worthy of note in this regard:

Iraq was never stripped of the Weapons of Mass Destruction it was presumed to have, which was George Bush and Tony Blair's avowed casus belli.
The legality of the invasion of Iraq has been unsuccessfully challenged on a number of fronts.
The likelihood that the otherwise morally acceptable military action attained the good purpose that justifies undertaking it -- protecting innocent people by disarming Iraq -- would have been almost impossible to call.

A fair fight?

Guthrie and Quinlan also muse on the conduct of a just war -- the concept of jus in bello. The book argues that action must not be taken in which the incidental harm done is an unreasonably heavy price to incur for the likely military benefit. If these two prominent military strategists address the legitimacy of destroying infrastructure on which innocent civilians depend, it may provoke a debate over proportionality of response in Iraq. Gerard Bradley, a Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, said before the Iraq invasion that a "Golden Rule" of fairness should be employed in just war. "The US would surely not bomb its own cities and villages or those of its allies to get a terrorist who was hiding there, and we should not do that in Iraq."

Just peace?

The book may be a useful reference for the waging of future wars, but in the long-term, attentions may turn to a third category within Just War theory. Brian Orend, a professor of Ethics based in Ontario, has written that there exist few restraints on the endings of wars, pointing out that there has never been an international treaty to regulate war's final phase and that there are strong disagreements regarding the nature of a just peace treaty. The gravest shortcoming of western policy, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or even Sierra Leone, has been failure to match military commitment with convincing civil follow-up, Max Hastings wrote in the Guardian last week.

Realpolitik

There is a good chance that Guthrie and Quinlan's tract will sink without trace, as just war has always been an ideal rather than a practice. Military intervention is couched in realpolitik, making war a matter of power, self-interest and necessity. The true motive behind the Iraq invasion, Alan Greenspan claimed, was to ensure US access to Iraqi oil and long term US dominance in the Middle East. This view appears to obviate moral analysis. As Simon Jenkins wrote in The Times a fortnight ago, Blair's wars were justified only by his declaring them to be so.