Ramblings on Iraq, International Law, Realism etc

After eight and a half years the United States has finally withdrawn in part from the conflict in Iraq. Although presented as a success debate continues to swirl over the initial motivation for the invasion. "Was it a just war?" many will ask. I have decided to present the pros and cons of the invasion below. Many points are debatable of course. I am a realist humanist liberal so there are overlapping value systems and many pros could well be in the cons section and vice versa.

 

Pros for invasion

 

1. Removed and evil regime and saved thousands of lives.
2. Prevented said evil regime from attacking other states in the region, particularly Israel and Kuwait.
3. Introduced democracy to Iraq for the first time.
4. The conqueror continues to support the new regime in establishing a democratic order.
5. Other evil states were shown that if you mess with humanity you will be overthrown.

Cons of the invasion

 

1. A sovereign state was conquered without just reason (the W.M.Ds were never found)
2. Hundreds of thousands have perished. Millions maimed physically and psychologically.
3. Iran's counter-weight has been removed allowing it to support pro-Shiite interests in the region and threaten Israel with nuclear destruction.
4. There was no consideration of the underlying tensions in Iraq pre-invasion between Kurd, Sunni Arab and Sunni Shiite and what an invasion would do to the relationship between the two.
5. The conquerors own security was subsequently compromised. The invasion was not properly marketed to the world and it now looks like a power and oil grab.
6. The conquerors evacuation at a time of political infighting smacks of irresponsibility. You caused this mess, you should stay and clean it up.
7. Other evil states were shown that if you mess with humanity you will be overthrown but only if there is a reasonable possibility that you don't have WMDs, the ultimate game changer.

 

There may be more and some aren't exactly great points but I think you get the general idea. Deliberating on this type of issue would be difficult. An international criminal court would need to evaluate the conquerors initial reason to go to war, was it justified. I think we have a case for saying that the conqueror believed what they wanted to believe. If a realist where to look at this he would likely say that no it wasn't justified. The reason Bush senior didn't whack the Iraqis in 1990 was that they needed a strong counter-weight to Iran. So what of the odd scud hit Israel, two major political groupings balanced each other and Saudi Arabia, Sunni, was protected by Sunni dominated Iraq. The guy on the street would also probably argue that the conqueror only invaded for the oil in the country. We see the billion dollar contracts floating about, we see the movies showing collusion between the Bush family and the interests. Its an obvious human desire to want more. So that leaves us with a problem. The international courts would rule against, the realist would rule against and the man would rule against. So what was the conqueror thinking? Easy - They were thinking they could get away with. Final point, is it healthy to have a state like that? Has the United States become the ultimate dictator? It has all the wealth, all the power and if left in the hands of the irresponsible, we have problems. Who is next I wonder?