Unjust Iraq War

The Iraq war has been a very sensitive and divisive issue in today's society. Although we can not ignore the cloud around this administration when it comes to potential incentives that going to war presented, (such as oil for profits and retaliation to Saddam Hussein for the Gulf War and treatment of President Bush Sr.), I will look beyond these potential motives to explain why the U.S. involvement in the Iraq War was unjust simply because it doesn't fall into any of the four functions of force authored by Robert J. Art. The United States ignored the U.N. guidelines for peace, as well as its public protest against the war, to strike Iraq with an unprovoked attack. A war fought on the premise that this country had ties to Osama Bin Laden, was harboring terrorist, and had nuclear ambitions. This turned out to be fabricated and questioned the legality of the first strike that commenced the Iraq War in 2003.

First we have the function of defense according to Art. Its main purposes are to ward off an attack and to minimize damages to one if attacked. Iraq being a failing state was in no position to mount any type of attack against the United States. They posed no threat to the security of the United States. The failure to get the approval of the UN supports this position. "In deed, the U.S. led coalition (which, in council deliberations included Spain) went to great efforts to draft one final resolution that could muster the necessary number of votes to give their planned invasion the UN stamp of approval. Having failed, U.S. & British diplomats argued that the authority to take military actions could be found in previous U.N. resolutions."(274) In going around the U.N., The United States used the tactics of preemptive self-defens...

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...mply to Germany belief about others intent without reference to their actual intent?"(83) The United States’ phantom justification of insisting on the war makes them accountable for starting the war when it was clear that Iraq posed no threat. They are ultimately responsible for lives lost, monies lost in fighting the war, and a country left in ruins. The war on terror is real and extremely important to our security, but it shouldn’t be used to as propaganda to fulfill special interests. This is a war of individuals, and not of a state, and a war that could not be fought by means of conventional tactics. The Bush administration successfully morphed Afghanistan terrorist Muslims into Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Bibliography

1. Russett, Bruce, Harvey Starr, and David Kinsella. Politics: the Menu for Choice, 8th ed. New York: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006.