Christian Views of War: The Case of Iraq
Greg Moore Friday, 4 January 2008
In the Christian scriptures and consequently in Christian social thought there has always been a seeming tension between love, on the one hand, and justice, war and violence, on the other. This is perhaps exhibited with greatest lucidity in the following statements of Jesus. In Matthew 5:39 Jesus says, "Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." Yet in Luke 22:36, on the night in which Jesus was betrayed, he says, "And now let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one."[1] How does one reconcile Jesus' exhortation to turn the other cheek, with his admonition to the disciples to buy swords? While this will not be the central question addressed here, those Christians emphasizing the primacy of Matthew 5:39 have belonged to a pacifist tradition in Christian social thought, most famously and perhaps best articulated by John Howard Yoder.[2] Those emphasizing Jesus' words in Luke 22:36 and the many Old Testament battles such as those in the book of Joshua as at least potentially normative for interstate conflicts, however, have belonged to the Just War tradition of Christian social thought articulated by many throughout Western history, including St. Augustine,[3] Reinhold Niebuhr,[4] Jean Elshtain,[5] and, in a well-known but secular context, Michael Walzer.[6]
Because US President George W. Bush is well known as an outspoken Christian, and it is also well known that Evangelical Christians have been among President Bush' most ardent supporters, how then should the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003 be judged when held up against the two viable standards by which Christians have historically judged the morality of resort to military force, that of Christian pacifism and that of Christian Just War Theory?
As it regards Christian pacifism, there is little to discuss in this case, because in this tradition a resort to force in international relations is never justified. Resort to force reveals, rather, that the actor is willing to use "evil" means to attain supposedly "just" ends, a poor trade-off at best, from this perspective. In the Iraq case, the ethic of turning the other cheek cannot be reconciled with the decision to invade and occupy another country for the Christian pacifist.
How does the decision to invade Iraq stand up against the Just War criteria? On the night the US began its military action against Iraq, President Bush stated that the goals of the operation were to "disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger."[7] In his appeal to the American public, this was a case of pre-emptive war to stop a growing threat. There were a number of appeals to Just War principles such as just cause, right spirit, discrimination, good faith, and self-defense.
The people of the United States and their friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.[8]
Yet there were several elements missing in the President's ad bellum[9] calculations from a Just War perspective. In terms of just cause, it would be difficult to argue that Iraq had done anything to the United States that deserved invasion, for there is still no evidence that Iraq had any role to play in the 9/11 attacks or any other attacks on the United States. Also, while the US made appeals to right intentions (restoring peace), Iraq had not attacked it and was not disturbing its neighbors at the time, nor was there any sign of either of these things taking place. Restoring peace, therefore, could not be a reasonable argument when it was the US whom actually broke the peace by invading Iraq in March 2003. Last resort is also problematic because it was clear that many of America's allies and others on the Security Council wanted to see the US wait until the UN inspection process had run its full course. War was clearly not yet a last resort in March, 2003. Even if the US wanted to make the case that it was enforcing prior UN sanctions, this must give rise to questions about the principle of competent authority (another ad bellum consideration), for it would have to be the UN, and not the US, that would have to authorize an enforcement of Security Council resolutions not involving matters of self defense, defense of an ally, cross-border incursions, etc.
Another reason the Iraq War falls short of the just war criteria is that, in line with problems in both in bello[10] and ad bellum considerations of proportionality (doing more good than harm), the war has brought greater harm to Iraq's people than would have been the case had Coalition forces not intervened. With the exception of the Kurds in the north, who suffered disproportionately heavily under Saddam and who have fared disproportionately well (having escaped much of the recent sectarian violence) after the start of the war, Iraq remains more dangerous and violent four years after the intervention than it was beforehand. At the time of writing, Iraq's civilian death toll is some 69,334-75,775 since the start of the war.[11] Even without considering the numbers of Coalition forces lost in the war, it would be difficult to argue that Saddam Hussein would have killed that many people in the same amount of time, or even within several years on either end of the war. In addition to all that has been said heretofore about the inapplicability of Just War Theory's sense of "justice" to this particular war, the leaders of the Coalition forces bear a heavy burden of proof in explaining how unleashing so much death and destruction has lessened the suffering of Iraqis. Just War Theory normally requires that all of the criteria for jus ad bellum considerations be met before military action is initiated if one wants to claim a war is "just." This clearly could not be said to be the case with this war.
If the standard criteria for a just war do not pass muster, could one argue, as the Bush Administration has, that the invasion of Iraq was a matter of preemptive or preventive war? If so, is there here a case to be made for a just preemption or a just preventive war? As Michael Walzer, Alan Dershowitz and others have argued, preemption can be consistent with Just War Theory, while preventive war is a bit more controversial.[12]
The US attack on Iraq in 2003 could not be considered as "preemptive" as long as preemptive is defined as it traditionally has been, "like a reflex action, a throwing up of one's arms at the very last minute" to parry a blow or land one's own before the attacking blow strikes its target.[13] The 1967 Israeli preemptive strike against Egyptian forces massed on its border is the classic example.[14] There has been no intelligence suggesting that Iraq was preparing to attack the US, nor has there been any suggesting Iraq was preparing to share what WMD technology or materials it had with persons, organizations or states who were prepared to attack the US or its citizens. The impending blow was not on its way, and thus the strike against Iraq could not legitimately be considered a preemptive one.
Nor was US action against Iraq in 2003 consistent with a justifiable act of preventive war. If preventive war is considered as "an attack that responds to a distant danger," or is that which is "fought to maintain the balance" of power to prevent "a relation of dominance and inferiority,"[15] the attack on Iraq fits no better. In fact, for Walzer, preventive war is never justified.[16] While Dershowitz concludes that preventive war is ultimately a right of democracies, he rejects it as a reason justifying the US attack on Iraq in 2003.[17] While one could easily make a case that Iraq under Saddam Hussein posed a potential threat to the US given the despotic nature of the regime and its open hostility toward the US, there was not in 2003 (nor has there been after the intervention) any evidence that Saddam had either the capabilities or the intentions of attacking the US any time in the near future, or that he was working with Al Qaeda and thereby responsible at least in part for 9/11.[18] Nor is there any evidence he was an imminent danger to his neighbors or intent on changing the balance of the power in the region, if this is itself a reason for preventive war, and again many say it is not. While recognizing the ultimate justice in the destruction of Saddam's despotic and corrupt regime, there just does not seem to be a convincing case one could make that the US invasion of Iraq was just in either a preventive or preemptive sense in March 2003.
The assumptions inherent in the decision to take the United States to war in Iraq in March, 2003, therefore, fail to live up to the standards of either viable Christian approach to war, Christian pacifism or the Christian Just War tradition. Were Christian Just War thinker Reinhold Niebuhr alive today, he would undoubtedly be "a voice crying in the wilderness," for he would certainly have opposed the war in Iraq. In fact, he might repeat what he penned in 1952.
We...as all "God-fearing" men of all ages, are never safe against the temptation of claiming God too simply as the sanctifier of whatever we most fervently desire...Strangely enough, none of the insights derived from this faith are finally contradictory to our purpose and duty of preserving our civilization. They are, in fact, prerequisites for saving it. For if we should perish, the ruthlessness of the foe would be only the secondary cause of the disaster. The primary cause would be that the strength of a giant nation was directed by eyes too blind to see all the hazards of the struggle; and the blindness would be induced not by some accident of nature or history but by hatred and vainglory.[19]
These words were directed to an earlier generation of American leaders during the Cold War years. Though that was a struggle of a different nature than the one the United States finds itself confronted with presently, the advice given remains apropos in an uncanny way, for as Solomon said to a still earlier generation, "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun."[20]
[1] Bible passages are taken from the English Standard Version of the Bible, Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Publishers, 2001.
[2] See John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus: Vicit Agnus Noster ("Our Lamb has Conquered"), Second Edition, Carlisle, UK and Grand Rapids, Michigan: Paternoster and Eerdmens, 1994.
[3] St. Augustine, City of God, Image, 1958.
[4] See Moral Man and Immoral Society, New York: Scribner's Sons, 1932; Christian Realism and Political Problems, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952, and others.
[5] Jean Bethke Elshtain, Just War Against Terror, New York: Basic Books, 2003.
[6] Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, Third Edition, New York: Basic Books, 2000.
[7] George W. Bush, "Threats and Responses: Bush's Speech at the Start of the War," Delivered March 19, 2003. New York Times, March 20, 2003.
[8] Bush, "Threats and Responses."
[9] I.e., considerations for going to war...
[10] Considerations in how war is waged...
[11] This estimate comes from http://www.iraqbodycount.org/, accessed August 14, 2007.
[12] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars; Alan M. Dershowitz, Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways, New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.
[13] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 75.
[14] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 82-85.
[15] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 75, 76.
[16] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 80.
[17] Dershowitz, Preemption, p. 210, 239, 343. Yet note that Dershowitz concludes that a preemptive strike on Iran would be justified under certain circumstances by Israel or the US if Iran develops nuclear capabilities (p. 174-189).
[18] Mark Mazzetti, "C.I.A. Said to Find No Hussein Link To Terror Chief," New York Times, September 9, 2006; "A Senate Committee Finds That, Contrary to What President Bush Has Said, Saddam Hussein Repulsed Overtures From al-Qaida," St. Petersburg (FL) Times, September 9, 2006.
[19] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952, p. 146 and 173-174.
[20] Ecclesiastes 1:9.