Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:06:32.115Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ending Tyranny in Iraq

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Fernando R. Tesón
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The war in Iraq has reignited the passionate humanitarian intervention debate. President George W. Bush surprised many observers in his second inaugural address when he promised to oppose tyranny and oppression, and this in a world not always willing or ready to join in that fight. Humanitarian intervention is again on the forefront of world politics.

Type
Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , September 2005 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Kusnetz, Marc et al. , Operation Iraqi Freedom (Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews McMeel, 2003), p. xiiGoogle Scholar. This is the account of the war by NBC News.

2 In addition to the NBC News account, a useful source is Sifry, M. L. and Cerf, C., eds., The Iraqi War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions (New York: Touchstone, 2003Google Scholar).

3 A survey of these arguments can be found in McGoldrick, Dominic, From “9–11” to the “Iraq War 2003”: International Law in an Age of Complexity (Oxford: Hart, 2004Google Scholar); Bannelier, Karine et al. , eds., L'intervention en Irak et le droit international (Paris: Pedone, 2004Google Scholar); and in “Agora: Future Implications of the Iraq Conflict,” American Journal of International Law 97 (July 2003), p. 553Google Scholar.

4 I believe that the war was legally justified as well. For a full discussion of the legal aspects, see Tesón, Fernando R., Humanitarian Intervention, 3rd ed., revised and updated (Ardsley, N.Y.: Transnational, forthcoming 2005Google Scholar).

5 I address this question fully in Téson, Humanitarian InterventionGoogle Scholar.

6 This section is a very brief summary of Téson, Humanitarian Intervention, ch. 5Google Scholar.

7 I write “severe tyranny” to distinguish the standard from, on the one hand, “ongoing atrocities,” and, on the other hand, “ordinary tyranny.” The proposed standard is not as demanding as the former, nor so lax as the latter. See discussion belowGoogle Scholar.

8 See Dworkin, Ronald, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 24–45Google Scholar.

9 Supporters of humanitarian intervention have generally treated guiding principles as necessary conditions for legitimacy, so that if one of the conditions is lacking the intervention would be illegitimate. See, e.g., Wheeler, Nicholas J., Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 33–35Google Scholar; International Commission on Intervention and Sovereignty, State, The Responsibility to Protect (Ottawa: IDRC, 2001), pp. 31–37Google Scholar; and McChrystal, Stanley A., “Memorandum to the President: Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff,” in Frye, Alton, ed., Humanitarian Intervention: Crafting a Workable Doctrine (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 2000), p. 61–70Google Scholar. The more flexible approach in the text is better suited to the complexities, similarities, and differences of various situations.

10 See, e.g., Hongju Koh, Harold, “On American Exceptionalism,” Stanford Law Review 55 (2003), pp. 1521–23Google Scholar; Falk, Richard A., “What Future for the UN Charter System of War Prevention?” American Journal of International Law 97 (2003), pp. 596–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Walzer, Michael, Arguing about War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 149Google Scholar; Evans, Gareth, “Humanity Did Not Justify This War,” Financial Times, May 15, 2003, p. 15Google Scholar; and Slater, Jerome, “Can the War with Iraq Be Justified?” Buffalo News, February 16, 2003, p. H1Google Scholar.

11 Falk, Contra, “What Future for the UN Charter System of War Prevention ?” pp. 596 – 97Google Scholar. Falk thinks that governments should not be allowed retroactively to invoke humanitarian reasons once they have initially chosen some other justification. But why? If the justification was available, why would the deficiencies in the rhetorical skills of politicians be dispositive? An analogy may help. Suppose I rescue someone held hostage by a villain, and when asked to justify my action I say that I did it because I thought (unreasonably and mistakenly) that the villain was threatening my life. My act of rescue is still justified, even if I failed to invoke the right reasons, and even if the reason I invoked did not justify my behavior.

12 For a summary of this position, see Oliver Ramsbotham and Woodhouse, Tom, Humanitarian Intervention in Contemporary Conflict: A Reconceptualization (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), p. 43Google Scholar. See also ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, pp. 35–36.

13 See Mill, John Stuart, Utilitarianism, ed. Crisp, Roger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 65Google Scholar, n. 2. Responding to a critic, Rev. Davies, Mill wrote: I submit, that he who saves another from drowning in order to kill him by torture afterwards, does not differ only in motive from him who does the same thing from duty or benevolence; the act itself is different. The rescue of the man is, in the case supposed, only the necessary first step of an act far more atrocious than leaving him to drown would have been… The morality of the action depends entirely upon the intention—that is, upon what the agent wills to do. But the motive, that is, the feeling which makes him will so to do, when it makes no difference in the act, makes none in the morality: though it makes a great difference in our moral estimation of the agent, especially if it indicates a good or a bad habitual disposition—a bent of character from which useful, or from which hurtful actions are likely to arise.

14 The discussion in the next two paragraphs owes to Michael Ridge , “Mill's Intentions and Motives,” Utilitas 14, no. 1 (2002), p. 54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 After this article was written, Terry Nardin kindly sent me his “Introduction,” in Terry Nardin and Melissa Williams, eds., Humanitarian Intervention (NOMOS: Yearbook of the American Society of Political and Legal Philosophy, XLVII) (New York: New York University Press, forthcoming 2005), where he makes a similar point (although not relying on Mill). I do not take sides on the question whether the motive is best defined as a desire, a disposition, or a feeling (as Mill prefers). It is enough for purposes of my analysis that the agent does X, intending to do X, thinking that X will enable him later to reach outcome Y. Be that as it may, Nardin and I agree that “a humanitarian act is defined by its intention, not by its motive” (“Introduction,” in Nardin and Williams, eds., Humanitarian Intervention)Google Scholar.

16 On the various definitions of action and its relation with intent and causation, see Wilson, George, “Action,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward N. (Stanford, Calif.: Metaphysics Research Lab, 2002Google Scholar); available at plato. stanford. edu.

17 For a comprehensive treatment, see Gardner, Martin R., “The Mens Rea Enigma: Observations on the Role of Motive in the Criminal Law Past and Present,” Utah Law Review (1993), pp. 635–750Google Scholar. A useful summary is LaFave, Wayne R., “Motive,” in Substantive Criminal Law, 2nd ed. (Eagan, Minn.: West, 2005Google Scholar) section 5.3. The question is complex, as motive sometimes bears on the definition of the crime (think of hate speech crimes). In these cases, however, we can perhaps say that criminal punishment aims at finding persons blameworthy. The performance of an act is a necessary condition for that blameworthiness, as a liberal criminal law does not punish mere motive. (I am indebted to Marcelo Ferrante on this point.)

18 Just overthrowing the tyrant does not amount to liberating the victims. If I depose the dictator and then impose my own tyranny, or hand the government to the dictator's henchmen, then I have not liberated the victims. The act of liberating victims of tyranny is a conjunction of deposing the tyrant plus certain acts (facilitating the establishment of free institutions) and omissions (avoiding acts that frustrate liberation). The difficulties of defining human action here are no greater than those that arise in other contextsGoogle Scholar.

19 I ignore here the issue of whether states can have intentions or motives. I assume that any account of state intent and motivation is reducible to propositions about individual intent and motivationGoogle Scholar.

20 See Wheeler, , Saving Strangers, pp. 78–110Google Scholar.

21 Dyson, R. W., ed., Aquinas: Political Writings (New York,: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 241Google Scholar.

22 Mona, Fixdal and Dan, Smith, “Humanitarian Intervention and Just War,” Mershon International Studies Review 42 (1998), p. 286Google Scholar.

23 See Falk, , “What Future for the UN Charter System of War Prevention?” p. 597Google Scholar.

24 Someone may insist that the way justifications enter the public domain has a bearing on the correctness of intervention. I am not persuaded by this objection because, in my view, typical public deliberation suffers from serious pathologies that undermine its epistemic credentials. See Pincione, Guido and Tesón, Fernando R., Deliberation, Democracy, and Rationality (New York: Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar, forthcoming)

25 See Ignatieff, Michael, “Why Are We in Iraq? (And Liberia? And Afghanistan,” New York Times Magazine, September 7, 2003, pp. 38ffGoogle Scholar.

26 See, e.g., George W Bush, “State of the Union,” January 28, 2003Google Scholar; available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html; his statements to the press on the eve of the attack, Threats and Responses: Excerpts from Joint News Conference Tomorrow Is a Moment of Truth, New York Times, March 17, 2003, p. A13; George W. Bush, “Address to the Nation,” March 19, 2003; available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030319-17.html; and for Prime Minister Blair, see, e.g., 149 Cong. Rec. H7059, H7060 (July 17, 2003) (address by the Right Honorable Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom).

27 See “Democracy Stirs in the Middle East,”Economist, March 5, 2005, p. 9Google Scholar.

28 See “Grudging Respect,”New Republic, March 21, 2005, p. 7Google Scholar.

29 Someone could perhaps call the “grand strategy” an intention, but I think it is more accurately described as motivation. For even if the security of the United States is not enhanced, and even if the Middle East or the rest of the world are not democratized, Iraq would still be liberatedGoogle Scholar.

30 The text of the address can be found in “There Is No Justice Without Freedom,”Washington Post, January 21, 2005, p. 24Google Scholar; available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/articles/A23747-2005Jan20.html. I quote from there.

31 Cf. Kant's distinction between pure and impure duty. See Louden, Robert B., Kant's Impure Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 9Google Scholar.

32 Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars (New York,: Basic Books, 1977), pp. 109 – 26Google Scholar.

33 See the discussion in Tesón, Fernando R., A Philosophy of International Law (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998Google Scholar), ch. 1.

34 See “Special Report, Middle East: Something Stirs,”Economist, March 5, 2005, pp. 24–26; MacFarquhar, Neil, “Unexpected Whiff of Freedom Proves Bracing for Mideast,” New York Times, March 6, 2005, p. 1Google Scholar.

35 See Purdum, Todd S., “For Bush, No Boasts, but a Taste of Vindication,” New York Times, March 9, 2005, p. 10Google Scholar.

36 Compare Burns, John F., “On Iraq's Street of Fear, The Tide May Be Turning,” New York Times, March 21, 2005, p. A1Google Scholar, with Burns, John F. and Schmitt, Eric, “Generals Offer Sober Outlook on Iraqi War,” New York Times, May 19, 2005, p. A1Google Scholar.

37 Even in France, where defending the war is quite a risky business, some voices have started wondering. See Sorman, Guy, “Et si Bush avait raison?” Le Figaro, February 26, 2005, p. 10Google Scholar.

38 Space constraints prevent me from discussing here an important additional question: whether the costs of the intervention were morally acceptable. I address the point in Tesón, Humanitarian Intervention, ch.10Google Scholar.

39 See, e.g., ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, pp. 31–32Google Scholar.

40 The regime's brutality has been amply documented. The ever-present terror visited on Iraqis by the secret police and similar branches of the ruling Baathist Party are well described in Makiya, Kanan, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998Google Scholar), esp. chs. 1 and 2.

41 See, Alia, Inter, Coughlin, Con, Saddam: King of Terror (New York: HarperCollins, 2002Google Scholar); Wiley, Louis, Saddam's Killing Fields, vol. 1 (videocassette) (Alexandria, Va.: PBS Video, 1992Google Scholar). The Iraqis themselves are compiling millions of documents attesting to the horrors of the regime. See the work of the Iraq Memory Foundation at http://www.iraqmemory.org.

42 Ken Roth, “War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention,” Human Rights Watch World Report 2004; available at http://www.hrw.org/wr2k4/3.htm.

43 Independent International Commission on Kosovo, Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned (Oxford,: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 4Google Scholar; emphasis added.

44 I do not address here whether intervention is justified to spread democracy, or to establish liberal institutions in societies that suffer not severe but “ordinary” tyranny. The Iraqi regime certainly met the standard of severe tyranny I proposeGoogle Scholar.

45 This is particularly obvious when the Iraqis themselves (as opposed to critics of the war) are allowed to speak. See, e.g., Talabani, Jalal and Barzani, Massoud, “What Iraq Needs Now,” New York Times, July 9, 2003, p. A21Google Scholar. See also Stephen Morris, “Why We Had to Fight— Iraq 366 Days Later,”Weekend Australian, March 20, 2004, p. 28; Daniel Byman, “Constructing a Democratic Iraq: Challenges and Opportunities,”International Security 28, no. 1 (2003), pp. 47–78; and Nancy Gibbs, “When the Cheering Stops: Jubilation and Chaos Greet the Fall of the Saddam Regime,”Time, April 21, 2003, p. 40.

46 Berman, Paul, “Silence and Cruelty,” New Republic Online , June 17, 2004Google Scholar, contends that Iraqis had suffered “psychological demolition.”

47 See, e.g., Gettleman, Jeffrey, “Anti-U.S. Outrage Unites a Growing Iraqi Resistance,” New York Times, April 11, 2004, p. 14Google Scholar. There was, of course, ex ante anxiety and suspicion at the occupation, which expressed the legitimate desire of the great majority of Iraqis that the Coalition leave once it could plausibly do so. But these sentiments are perfectly severable from the welcome by the great majority of the Iraqis of their liberation. My discussion here addresses only the claim that the insurgency alone is evidence of the Iraqi will not to be liberated.

48 The evidence suggests that the insurgency is dominated by the disempowered Sunni minority, but also that not all Sunnis are sympathetic to it. See Sly, Liz, “Sunni Political Front Takes Shape,” Chicago Tribune, May 22, 2005, p. C9Google Scholar.

49 See Tesón, Fernando R., “Self-Defense in International Law and Rights of Persons,” Ethics & International Affairs 18, no. 1 (2004), pp. 87 – 91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 See, e.g., Rubin, James P., “Stumbling into War,” Foreign Affairs 82, no. 5 (2003), pp. 46 – 68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Thus, I am generally favorable to the proposal by Allen, Buchanan and Keohane, Robert O., “The Preventive Use of Force: A Cosmopolitan Institutional Proposal,” Ethics & International Affairs 18, no. 1 (2004), pp. 1–22Google Scholar, although they view approval by democratic states as a constraint, and not just as a desirable practice.

52 See, Inter alia, ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, pp. 47–55Google Scholar; Wheeler, Saving Strangers, pp. 40–48; Ramsbotham and Woodhouse, Humanitarian Intervention in Contemporary Conflict, pp. 157–62; and Stein, Mark S., “Unauthorized Humanitarian Intervention,” Social Philosophy and Policy 21, no. 1 (2004), pp. 14–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 This is the position held by a majority of legal scholarsGoogle Scholar.

54 Requiring democratic or human rights credentials for members of the Security Council is not among the proposals for reform. The recent UN report on the matter only recommends increasing “the democratic and accountable nature of the body.” See A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility—Report of the Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (New York: United Nations, 2004), p. 80Google Scholar.

55 See, e.g., Byers, Michael and Chesterman, Simon, “Changing the Rules about Rules? Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention and the Future of International Law,” in Holzgrefe, J. L. and Keohane, Robert O., eds., Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 181–84Google Scholar. Other legal scholars believe, more sensibly, that the Kosovo precedent introduced uncertainty regarding this requirement. See, e.g., Jane Stromseth, “Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention: The Case for Incremental Change,” in Holzgrefe and Keohane, eds., Humanitarian Intervention, p. 177; and Thomas M. Franck, “Interpretation and Change in the Law of Humanitarian Intervention,” in Holzgrefe and Keohane, eds., Humanitarian Intervention, p. 204.

56 This minimalist view of order has a rich tradition. See, e.g., Bull, Hedley, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), p. 3–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a reflection on the concept of order and its relation to justice, see Hurrell, Andrew, “Order and Justice in International Relations: What Is at Stake?” in Foot, Rosemary, Gaddis, John Lewis, and Hurrell, Andrew, eds., Order and Justice in International Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 24–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Eric Posner and John Yoo have suggested that the UN is increasingly used as a forum to oppose U.S. efforts to use force and that it hampers in various ways the advancement of international law. Eric Posner and John Yoo, “Where's the Old Bolton When We Need Him?”Los Angeles Times, April 19, 2005, p. B13. If, as I suspect, they are correct, the United States has a valid reason to ignore the UN when the United States is trying to do the right thing, as in IraqGoogle Scholar.

58 Buchanan and Keohane, in “The Preventive Use of Force,” pp. 16–22, propose a two-stage system that includes Security Council action, under the assumption that reforming the Security Council is unrealisticGoogle Scholar.

59 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect , pp. 54 – 55Google Scholar.

60 See Buchanan and Keohane, “The Preventive Use of Force.”Google Scholar

61 Like the ICISS, Human Rights Watch correctly sees this problem, and Ken Roth stops short of suggesting in his essay, “War in Iraq,” that lack of approval invariably means unlawfulnessGoogle Scholar.

62 Thus I disagree with Suzanne Nossel, who claims that progressives must rescue liberal internationalism from “the Bush Administration's militarism” and “militant imperiousness.”Nossel, Suzanne, “Smart Power,” Foreign Affairs 83, no. 2 (2004), p. 131CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Berman, “Silence and Cruelty.”Google Scholar

64 Space limitations prevent me from addressing the question of the costs of the Iraqi war. I discuss it in Tesón, Humanitarian Intervention, ch. 10. While of course the death of innocents in the war is regrettable, I believe the war has generally complied with the strictures of the doctrine of double effect. For a general discussion, see Tesón, Fernando R., “The Liberal Case for Humanitarian Intervention,” in Holzgrefe, and Keohane, , eds., Humanitarian Intervention, pp. 93–129Google Scholar.

65 For two recent findings, see Tavernise, Sabrina, “End of the Line for Families of Baghdad's Missing: The City Morgue,” New York Times, May 20, 2005, p. 10Google Scholar; and Worth, Robert F., “Iraqis Find Graves Thought to Hold Hussein's Victims,” New York Times, April 15, 2005, p. 8Google Scholar.