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Preventative vs. Pre-emptive vs. Whatever Works

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And another thing. . .

I’ve been arguing recently in class that the Iraq War doesn’t pass the laugh test as a pre-emptive war. A pre-emptive war, of course, requires the presence of an imminent threat, which even the administration has admitted never existed. A pre-emptive war happens when one state has knowledge of the preparations of another state for war, and decides to seize the initiative by attacking first. The Six Day War in 1967 is usually given as an example of a pre-emptive war. Although the President has argued that his doctrine is one of pre-emptive war, it is actually one of preventative war, which is a different critter entirely. A preventative war involves the identification of a long range threat, and the decision to deal with that threat with the use of force before it becomes more of a problem. A threat must be growing to justify preventative war; attack now, because the situation will be worse in ten years. Obviously, this doctrine creates a lot of problems when actually implemented, because just about anyone could be a threat in ten years. The Japanese justified the Pearl Harbor attack as preventative, and the Germans justified Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of Russia) as preventative. The justification of the Iraq War by the administration has been on preventative grounds, arguing that Hussein was growing stronger and would have presented a larger threat in ten years than he was today.

And that’s the problem.

There is no way to argue, in March of 2003, that Saddam Hussein was growing stronger. Iraq’s military infrastructure, shattered in 1991, was in a state of advanced decay. Even if Hussein had biological and chemical programs, they would have presented no threat to United States military forces. Iraq was not a plausible threat to the nations in its region, including Israel, Syria, and Iran, all of whom would likely have squashed an Iraqi attack. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were safe behind a US military screen; Iraqi forces attempting to mount an attack would have been quickly crushed. The Iraqi Army was in a state of complete disrepair; the average Iraqi soldier fired off ten live roundsĀ per year. Even supporters of the war have admitted this; indeed, it was part of the case. Saddam was so afraid of his own army that he stocked the highest command levels with the personally loyal rather than the competent. In short, Iraq was growing weaker, not stronger. Iraq was likely to be weaker in 2013 than it was in 2003.

So, the Iraq War wasn’t pre-emptive, as there was no imminent threat. Indeed, it doesn’t even rise to the level of a preventative war, as legally problematic as that is. Put simply, justification for the Iraq War cannot lie in the direct threat that Iraq posed to the United States and its allies. It must lie either on Iraq’s connections to terrorism or on humanitarian/stability grounds. And those cases are a lot harder to make.

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