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-defense which is recognized as a reason for just war by international law. They only had to prove to the international community that an attack was imminent. The easiest way to prove that was to find the weapons of mass destruction or supported programs. "Leaving aside the fact that many do not accept this interpretation even in principle, the U.S.(& Britain, its primary military ally) needed to demonstrate that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction compatibility was imminent. They failed to do so, both before and after the war."(276) This strike doesn't fit as a defense of preemptive, (an attack in hours or days), nor does it fit for defense of preventive, (an attack in months or years). The U.S. had successfully attacked a harmless country.

The next function of force according to Art is deterrence. This serves to prevent the enemy from doing something that one doesn’t want him to do and that he might otherwise be tempted to do by threatening him with unacceptable punishment if he does. In essence this is the threat of retaliation for deviating from one’s requests. The effectiveness of the threat depends upon the states’ credibility for carrying out the threat, and the United States being the superpower that it is, had all the credibility needed to have the full attention of the Iraqi leader. This is why Hussein complied with the UN in 2002 with the Security Council Resolution 1441. This act demanded that Iraq re-admit weapons inspectors and comply with previous resolutions it has ignored since the 1990s. Even after the U.N. inspector Hans Blix reported that there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction or supported programs, the United States disregarded the report, claiming that diplomacy has failed, and went on to overthrow Hussein without U.N. support. Their threat of deterrence had worked, making it hypocritical and illegal for them to continue strides to war. The point of deterrence is to avoid war as long as they comply with your wishes, in that the United States had succeeded. If deterrence turns to action, then it means that it was unsuccessful and tells you that the United States had intended to invade Iraq regardless of their compliancy. Deterrence is the function that comes closest to applying to the United States involvement in the war. But because they continued in their course of action to overthrow Iraq even after successfully deterring them to comply with the U.N., makes this function inapplicable.

Compellence is the use of force that aims to stop the enemy from doing something that he has already undertaken or to get the enemy to do something that he has not yet undertaken. This is a proactive and offensive use of force in order to get the enemy to abide by one’s wishes. The success of this function is measured by how closely and quickly the enemy conforms to one’s wishes. Compellence is only necessary if deterrence isn’t successful. This is a less favorable alternative compared to deterrence since it forces the United States to actually carry out its threat. The level of deterrence depends on the power of persuasion as opposed to compellence, which depends on the power of the military. This function should have never been carried out since the United States successfully deterred the enemy. But after the threat was carried out and it came to light that the weapons of mass destruction were not found, the Bush administration continued with the assault. The debate over the former Iraqi regime's ties to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network ended in 2004 with the release of the 9/11 Commission Report. The Report had found no evidence