Ending Tyranny in Iraq - Mafhoum Tyranny in Iraq Fernando R. Tesón* A s it did at least three times during the twentieth century, the United States (this time joined by its most reliable

Ending Tyranny in IraqFernando R. Tesón*

As it did at least three times during thetwentieth century, the United States(this time joined by its most reliable

ally, the United Kingdom, and a few others)has once again deposed a brutal tyrant. Thelong and cruel rule of Saddam Hussein cameto a close in 2003 after a short war. Operation“Iraqi Freedom” had four phases: militarydeployment and preparation; initial attack;capture of Baghdad and overthrow of theregime; and reconstruction and peacekeep-ing. In every phase except the last, the Anglo-American alliance (the Coalition) hadremarkable success.1 The first three phases—that is, the international war proper—lastedfrom March 19, 2003 until April 14, 2003.These were followed by a period of militaryoccupation, the return of sovereignty toIraq, and, finally, an unprecedented demo-cratic election in the country—all of it amidvirulent insurgent violence.2

The war in Iraq has reignited the passion-ate humanitarian intervention debate. Pres-ident George W. Bush surprised manyobservers in his second inaugural addresswhen he promised to oppose tyranny andoppression, and this in a world not alwayswilling or ready to join in that fight. Human-itarian intervention is again on the forefrontof world politics.

Many have criticized the war, in all partsof the world. Much of the criticism challen-ges the twin assumptions made by Coalitionleaders: that the United States had to neu-tralize the dangers posed by Iraq, and that

the war can be justified as part of the war onterror. The legal arguments against the warhave focused largely on self-defense and en-forcement matters, in particular: whetherthe justifications given by the Coalition weregenuine, given the fact that no weapons ofmass destruction were discovered in Iraq;whether the war could be justified as enforc-ement of prior Security Council resolutions;whether preventive self-defense is admissi-ble under international law; whether the waragainst Iraq can be justified as part of a reac-tion against the attacks of September 11,2001; whether the Iraq war has severelyundermined the system of the UN Charter;and whether the law of self-defense shouldbe radically changed in the light of the newrealities that the international communityhas to face.3 These criticisms have arisen

1

* I am grateful to Eric Posner and the participants at theUniversity of Chicago International Law Colloquiumfor their useful comments. Thanks also to Dean DonWeidner of Florida State College of Law for granting merelief from my teaching obligations in the spring of 2005.1 See Marc Kusnetz et al., Operation Iraqi Freedom(Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews McMeel, 2003), p. xii. Thisis the account of the war by NBC News.2 In addition to the NBC News account, a useful sourceis M. L. Sifry and C. Cerf, eds., The Iraqi War Reader:History, Documents, Opinions (New York: Touchstone,2003).3 A survey of these arguments can be found in DominicMcGoldrick, From “9-11” to the “Iraq War 2003”: Inter-national Law in an Age of Complexity (Oxford: Hart,2004); Karine Bannelier et al., eds., L’intervention en Iraket le droit international (Paris: Pedone, 2004); and in“Agora: Future Implications of the Iraq Conflict,”Amer-ican Journal of International Law 97 (July 2003), p. 553.

Ethics F International Affairs 19, no. 2 (2005).All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or utilized in any form without the written permission of the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs.

against the background of a growing distrustof American power and the anxieties createdby new threats to peace and liberty.

In this essay I respond to a different criti-cism of the war: that it cannot be justified ashumanitarian intervention. I will not, there-fore, address self-defense or other possiblejustifications of the war unrelated to theabject human rights record of the deposedIraqi regime. I argue that the war was morallyjustified as humanitarian intervention. Insubstantiating this claim, I will, for the mostpart, set aside legal and political questionsand concentrate on the moral legitimacy ofthe intervention.4

There are four claims that have been ad-vanced by those who argue that the war in Iraq cannot be justified as humanitar-ian intervention:

Claim 1: The war cannot be justified ashumanitarian intervention because it isalways prohibited to wage war for humanrights; that is, the doctrine of humanitarianintervention is invalid.

Claim 2: The war cannot be justified ashumanitarian intervention because the Co-alition leaders did not offer that justificationbut different ones. They did not say that thewar was waged for humanitarian reasons.

Claim 3: The war cannot be justified ashumanitarian intervention because Coalitionleaders did not intend the humanitarianobjective. They had a different intent: to sup-press a security threat.

Claim 4: The war cannot be justified ashumanitarian intervention because the Coa-lition did not comply with other requirementsestablished by the doctrine of humanitarianintervention.

I deal only briefly with the all-importantclaim 1, the general justification of hu-manitarian intervention. I will assume thatsometimes it is justified to intervene militarilyfor humanitarian reasons (as was

the case in Kosovo).5 I do, however, outline aversion of the doctrine of humanitarianintervention that I defend more fully else-where. I then respond to claims 2, 3, and 4. Iwill examine the criticisms that humanitarianintervention principles cannot justify the warin Iraq because it was not really humanitar-ian, and the criticism that the war did notmeet other requirements for legitimatehumanitarian intervention. I conclude that,whatever its value as a defensive reactionagainst terrorism, the war was indeed justifiedas a humanitarian intervention.

THE HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTIONDOCTRINE6

I define humanitarian intervention asproportionate help, including forciblehelp, provided by governments (individu-ally or in alliances) to individuals inanother state who are victims of severetyranny (denial of human rights by theirown government) or anarchy (denial ofhuman rights by collapse of the socialorder). Humanitarian interventions areguided by the following principles:

• a justifiable intervention must be aimedat ending tyranny or anarchy;

• humanitarian interventions are gov-erned, like all wars, by the doctrine ofdouble effect (that is, the permissibilityof causing serious harm as a side effect ofpromoting some good end, coupled with

4 I believe that the war was legally justified as well. For afull discussion of the legal aspects, see Fernando R.Tesón, Humanitarian Intervention, 3rd ed., revised andupdated (Ardsley, N.Y.: Transnational, forthcoming2005).5 I address this question fully in Téson, HumanitarianIntervention.6 This section is a very brief summary of Téson,Humanitarian Intervention, ch. 5.

2 Fernando R. Tesón

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an adequate theory of costs and benefits);• in general, only severe cases of anarchy

or tyranny7 qualify for humanitarian intervention;

• the victims of tyranny or anarchy mustwelcome the intervention; and,

• humanitarian intervention should pre-ferably receive the approval or support ofthe community of democratic states.

These principles should not be under-stood as strict necessary conditions forlegitimacy. Rather, I suggest that they areprinciples in Ronald Dworkin’s sense: ifthey apply, they incline our judgmenttoward approval of the intervention.8 Theydo not automatically determine legiti-macy. Conversely, if the intervention doesnot satisfy any one principle, that is a rea-son for condemning it, but it does notautomatically render it wrong. For exam-ple, suppose a government contemplatesintervening to stop genocide. Suppose fur-ther that it deceives public opinion, orrefuses to seek authorization (if authoriza-tion is desirable or possible), or does notcomply with the strictures of the doctrineof double effect. Those facts ought toincline our judgment against legitimacy,but they ought not be treated as decisivefor that judgment. We must consider thosefacts in light of the urgency of endingtyranny in particular cases.9

Here I do not attempt to defend this par-ticular version of the doctrine. Rather, Iwish to challenge the view expressed bymany that even if (some version of) thehumanitarian intervention doctrine isaccepted, the intervention in Iraq cannotbe justified on humanitarian groundseither because it was not really humanitar-ian, or because even if it was (intended as)humanitarian, it did not meet otherrequirements of the doctrine.

THE QUESTION OF RIGHT INTENT:INTENTION AND MOTIVE

Many commentators have dismissed thepossibility of treating the intervention ashumanitarian. Citing the shifting justifica-tions that President Bush and Prime Minis-ter Tony Blair gave before, during, and afterthe war, they claim that the United Stateswas “really” trying to find weapons of massdestruction (or “really” doing somethingelse), rather than trying to rescue the Iraqisfrom Hussein’s rule.10 This objection maytake the form described in claim 2—thatCoalition leaders did not say they wereintervening for humanitarian reasons—or

7 I write “severe tyranny” to distinguish the standardfrom, on the one hand, “ongoing atrocities,” and, onthe other hand, “ordinary tyranny.” The proposedstandard is not as demanding as the former, nor so laxas the latter. See discussion below.8 See Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cam-bridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 24–45.9 Supporters of humanitarian intervention have gen-erally treated guiding principles as necessary condi-tions for legitimacy, so that if one of the conditions islacking the intervention would be illegitimate. See,e.g., Nicholas J. Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitar-ian Intervention in International Society (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 33–35; Interna-tional Commission on Intervention and State Sover-eignty, The Responsibility to Protect (Ottawa: IDRC,2001), pp. 31–37; and Stanley A. McChrystal, “Memo-randum to the President: Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff,” in Alton Frye, ed., Humanitarian Interven-tion: Crafting a Workable Doctrine (New York: Councilon Foreign Relations Press, 2000), pp. 61–70. The moreflexible approach in the text is better suited to the complexities, similarities, and differences of vari-ous situations.10 See, e.g., Harold Hongju Koh, “On American Excep-tionalism,” Stanford Law Review 55 (2003), pp. 1521–23;Richard A. Falk, “What Future for the UN Charter Sys-tem of War Prevention?” American Journal of Interna-tional Law 97 (2003), pp. 596–97; Michael Walzer,Arguing about War (New Haven: Yale University Press,2004), p. 149; Gareth Evans, “Humanity Did Not Jus-tify This War,” Financial Times, May 15, 2003, p. 15; andJerome Slater, “Can the War with Iraq Be Justified?”Buffalo News, February 16, 2003, p. H1.

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the form of claim 3—that they did notreally intend the war to be humanitarianbut had other, nonhumanitarian, inten-tions. These critics may or may not havebeen ready to approve of the interventionhad they been persuaded of its humanitar-ian nature, but, at any rate, categorizing theintervention as humanitarian is a prelimi-nary step even to starting to discuss theissue of justification. For these critics, thefact that the United States is helping theIraqis to build democratic institutions dur-ing reconstruction might be a good thing,but it is not enough to characterize theintervention as humanitarian, and thus notenough to justify it retrospectively underthe humanitarian intervention doctrine.They require one of the following things tooccur before or at the time of the invasion:the intervener must say that he is acting forhumanitarian reasons (claim 2); or, what-ever he says, he must actually have ahumanitarian intent (claim 3).

These two versions of the objection canbe joined into a single one: that the Coali-tion lacked humanitarian intent. This isbecause the first version, the performativetheory of justification (that what matters iswhat governments say they are doing),while popular with international lawyers, isuntenable. Simply put: governments, likeindividuals, may lie about why they aredoing what they are doing, or they may bemistaken about why they are doing whatthey are doing and about which rule, if any,is available to justify their behavior. Wordslack magical power, so whether the inter-vention is humanitarian cannot depend onthe government saying so. This viewinvolves, in addition, a fallacy. Suppose agovernment has two available justificationsfor a contemplated act. If it chooses to jus-tify its behavior under one of them, it doesnot follow that the act cannot be justified

under the rationale it did not choose toinvoke. The justification is still valid, and ifit applies it may justify the act even if thegovernment did not invoke it.11

Distinguishing Right Intent from Right MotiveBut the question of right intent (as opposedto right rhetoric) as part of the definition ofhumanitarian intervention is importantand deserves close examination. Most writ-ers agree that a necessary condition for thejustification of humanitarian interventionis that the interveners act out of humani-tarian concerns, at least in part.12 If a gov-ernment’s preeminent reasons or motivesare nonhumanitarian, the intervention willnot be humanitarian, and should not beevaluated under the doctrine of humani-tarian intervention, even if the doctrine isdeemed valid. The use of force will besomething else (self-defense, for example),and it should be judged accordingly.

But what facts are we describing whenwe say that a government has or doesn’thave right intention? To answer I intro-duce, following John Stuart Mill, a distinc-


11 Contra Falk,“What Future for the UN Charter Systemof War Prevention?” pp. 596–97. Falk thinks that gov-ernments should not be allowed retroactively to invokehumanitarian reasons once they have initially chosensome other justification. But why? If the justificationwas available, why would the deficiencies in the rhetor-ical skills of politicians be dispositive? An analogy mayhelp. Suppose I rescue someone held hostage by a vil-lain, and when asked to justify my action I say that I didit because I thought (unreasonably and mistakenly)that the villain was threatening my life. My act of rescueis still justified, even if I failed to invoke the right rea-sons, and even if the reason I invoked did not justify mybehavior.12 For a summary of this position, see Oliver Rams-botham and Tom Woodhouse, Humanitarian Interven-tion in Contemporary Conflict: A Reconceptualization(Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), p. 43. See also ICISS,The Responsibility to Protect, pp. 35–36.

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tion between intention and motive.13

Intention covers the contemplated act,what the agent wills to do. I see a person indistress, decide to rescue her, and do it.14

The action was an act of rescue. I intendedto rescue the person, I committed to doingit, and I did it. The way I understand ithere, intention covers the willed act andthe willed consequences of the act. (It iscontroversial whether intention also cov-ers foreseen but not willed consequencesof the act.) Intention, then, implies notonly desire to do something but commit-ment to doing it. This involves believingthat the act is under the agent’s control. IfI intended to rescue someone but failed todo so, say because I didn’t put in enougheffort, or I was clumsy or otherwise mis-taken in my choice of means, then youcould say, perhaps, that mine was not anact of rescue. Certainly you could say thatmy failed effort cannot be justified as anact of rescue.15 The important point hereis that there is a direct connection betweenmy willing something, my commitment todoing it, and my doing it.

By contrast, a motive is a further goalthat one wishes to accomplish with theintended act. I rescued the person in dan-ger, I intended to do it, so mine was an actof rescue. But suppose I did it because Iwanted to appear as a hero in the localnewspaper. I had an ulterior motive. Thismotive is not part of the class of actionscalled “acts of rescue”; only the intentionis. It makes sense for you to say that my actof rescue was good (it saved a life), butthat I am not a particularly admirable per-son, since my motive was self-interested,not altruistic. A lasting contribution ofMill to the theory of action was to showthat intention is more important thanmotive in evaluating action (as opposed toevaluating persons). The concept of inten-

tion fulfills a double role: it allows us tocharacterize the act,16 to say that the actbelongs to a class of acts, such as acts ofrescue; and it allows us, correspondingly,to praise or criticize the act under themoral principles that apply to that class ofacts, acts of rescue.


13 See John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, ed. RogerCrisp (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 65,n. 2. Responding to a critic, Rev. Davies, Mill wrote:“I submit, that he who saves another from drowningin order to kill him by torture afterwards, does notdiffer only in motive from him who does the samething from duty or benevolence; the act itself is dif-ferent. The rescue of the man is, in the case sup-posed, only the necessary first step of an act far moreatrocious than leaving him to drown would havebeen. . . . The morality of the action depends entirelyupon the intention—that is, upon what the agentwills to do. But the motive, that is, the feeling whichmakes him will so to do, when it makes no differencein the act, makes none in the morality: though itmakes a great difference in our moral estimation ofthe agent, especially if it indicates a good or a badhabitual disposition—a bent of character fromwhich useful, or from which hurtful actions arelikely to arise.”14 The discussion in the next two paragraphs owes toMichael Ridge, “Mill’s Intentions and Motives,” Util-itas 14, no. 1 (2002), p. 54.15 After this article was written, Terry Nardin kindlysent me his “Introduction,” in Terry Nardin andMelissa Williams, eds., Humanitarian Intervention(NOMOS: Yearbook of the American Society of Politi-cal and Legal Philosophy, XLVII) (New York: NewYork University Press, forthcoming 2005), where hemakes a similar point (although not relying on Mill).I do not take sides on the question whether themotive is best defined as a desire, a disposition, or afeeling (as Mill prefers). It is enough for purposes ofmy analysis that the agent does X, intending to do X,thinking that X will enable him later to reach out-come Y. Be that as it may, Nardin and I agree that “ahumanitarian act is defined by its intention, not by itsmotive” (“Introduction,” in Nardin and Williams,eds., Humanitarian Intervention).16 On the various definitions of action and its relation with intent and causation, see George Wilson, “Action,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philoso-phy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Stanford, Calif.: Meta-physics Research Lab, 2002); available at plato.stanford.edu.

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Criminal law distinguishes intentionfrom motive in a similar way.17 Criminallaw tends to ignore motives in establishingcriminal liability. Thus, a crime gives riseto liability even if the agent had a goodmotive; and conversely, a noncriminal act isnot penalized just because the agent had abad motive. But motive is often relevant tothose administering punishment: a badmotive may lead the judge to punish moreseverely, while a criminal with a good motivemay receive leniency. This is exactly in linewith Mill’s distinction between judgingactions and judging persons: the bad motiveof a criminal allows us to say that the personis particularly evil or objectionable, but doesnot itself affect the moral status of the act(its criminality under the law). And a goodmotive may lead us to praise the criminal,and perhaps be lenient with him, while stillholding him responsible for the crime.

The distinction between intention andmotive is crucial to the debate on humani-tarian intervention, yet has unfortunatelybeen overlooked by critics of the war in Iraq.If a government wages war with the inten-tion to rescue victims of tyranny and does infact liberate those victims,18 then the inter-vention is humanitarian (and thus eligibleunder the doctrine), even if its motive is self-interested or otherwise nonhumanitarian.19

This distinction is crucial, for if we fail tomake it, governments can never have altru-istic motives. They always have motives verydifferent from the intention of endingtyranny—and, moreover, that is the way itshould be. Governments owe a fiduciaryduty to their citizens. They are bound toadvance their interests internationally, so itwould be morally wrong for them to careonly about saving others.

Public debate on intervention falls prey toa semantic ambiguity. In the sentence “TheUnited States invaded Iraq because it wanted

to neutralize the threat posed by Iraq’sweapons of mass destruction,” the word“because” is ambiguous: it may mean inten-tion or it may mean motive. Once we dis-solve the ambiguity we can say that theliberation of Iraq was motivated by theAmerican desire to disarm Iraq, and, when itturns out that the weapons are not there, weare accordingly free to praise the act of inter-vention while criticizing the governmentwho intervened for erring or lying.

The distinction between intention andmotive in the theory of intervention paral-lels the one in criminal law, but they are notperfectly symmetrical. As we saw, criminallaw is concerned with bad actions, eitherperformed out of good motives (which maybe cause for leniency), or bad motives(which may be cause for increased punish-ment), and, of course, it has nothing to say

17 For a comprehensive treatment, see Martin R. Gard-ner, “The Mens Rea Enigma: Observations on the Roleof Motive in the Criminal Law Past and Present,” UtahLaw Review (1993), pp. 635–750. A useful summary isWayne R. LaFave, “Motive,” in Substantive CriminalLaw, 2nd ed. (Eagan, Minn.: West, 2005), section 5.3.The question is complex, as motive sometimes bears onthe definition of the crime (think of hate speechcrimes). In these cases, however, we can perhaps saythat criminal punishment aims at finding personsblameworthy. The performance of an act is a necessarycondition for that blameworthiness, as a liberal crimi-nal law does not punish mere motive. (I am indebted toMarcelo Ferrante on this point.)18 Just overthrowing the tyrant does not amount to lib-erating the victims. If I depose the dictator and thenimpose my own tyranny, or hand the government to thedictator’s henchmen, then I have not liberated the vic-tims. The act of liberating victims of tyranny is a con-junction of deposing the tyrant plus certain acts(facilitating the establishment of free institutions) andomissions (avoiding acts that frustrate liberation). Thedifficulties of defining human action here are nogreater than those that arise in other contexts.19 I ignore here the issue of whether states can haveintentions or motives. I assume that any account ofstate intent and motivation is reducible to propositionsabout individual intent and motivation.

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about morally neutral actions (that is, non-criminalized conduct) performed out of badmotives. In contrast, the intervention that Iconsider here is a good action (liberatingpeople) performed out of a bad or non-altruistic motive (gaining power, or access tooil, or suppressing a threat). The logic is thesame, however: just as we do not acquitsomeone who did a bad deed just because hehad a good motive, so we do not condemn agovernment who did a good deed justbecause he had a bad (or merely nonaltruis-tic) motive. And the relevance of badmotives for moral evaluation is the same inboth cases: just as we think better of a crim-inal who acted out of a good motive (a rob-ber that wanted to feed his family, say) andwe punish him more leniently, so we criti-cize the political leader who helps people inneed out of a desire to gain access to oil (abad motive), or consider him less generous(without necessarily criticizing him) if hehelps people in need out of a desire to sup-press a threat (a nonaltruistic but not neces-sarily bad motive). Yet the evaluation of theagent (and this is my main point) is irrele-vant for the moral evaluation of the(intended and performed) act.

Many reject the doctrine of humanitarianintervention because they believe that inter-veners invariably have nonhumanitarianmotives. They usually advance cynical inter-pretations of the intentions of the interven-ers and are thus able to find the “real”reasons (selfish power politics, for example)behind any action. But since governmentsalways have some self-interested motive, it isalways possible to reinterpret any action, nomatter how apparently good or altruistic, asill-motivated. These kinds of cynical claimsare unfalsifiable: interveners always have badmotives, so no intervention is ever humani-tarian. But this is wrong. We intuitively feelthat governments (which usually have self-

interested motives) sometimes nonethelessdo the right thing, and this is because weintuitively see the distinction between inten-tion and motive. Even if (contrary to fact)the United States’ motive in 1941 was tobecome a dominant superpower, it did theright thing in fighting the Axis. Or, to take anexample outside of war, even if the UnitedStates’ motive in implementing the MarshallPlan was to neutralize Soviet power, itsintent (to donate money toward the rebuild-ing of a ravaged Europe) was laudable, andso was the act. Once we understand the dif-ference between intention and motive, thecriticism based on lack of right intention(both of the humanitarian interventiondoctrine and of the war in Iraq in particular)loses much of its appeal.

Evaluating IntentionsIntention (but not motive) is, then, relevantto characterizing the action. Intention is adefinitional element of the action. Butintention, unlike motive, is also relevant, asMill said, in evaluating the action morally.This is relevant for humanitarian interven-tion. A government that topples a repressiveregime with the intent of imposing its ownrepression, or to otherwise exploit or subju-gate the people, does not perform a human-itarian intervention. That is why I havedoubts about Vietnam’s 1979 intervention inCambodia, for example, an event that someauthors (notably Nicholas Wheeler) charac-terize as humanitarian intervention.20 Viet-nam toppled the murderous Pol Pot regimeonly to impose its own harsh dictatorship.Lawful interveners need not be saints, butfor an act to count as humanitarian inter-vention we should require at least the intentto liberate the victims of severe tyranny.

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

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It may be objected that, on my ownaccount, intent is superfluous, because theonly important factor, once we discardmotive, is the humanitarian outcome. Thisview may be reinforced by recalling that thesource of the intention/motive distinction,John Stuart Mill, was a utilitarian, so forhim, arguably, outcomes were paramount.This view is certainly possible, and indeedthe humanitarian outcome (people gettingrid of the tyrant) is central in my account. Ithink the concept of intent, however, oughtto be retained. Consider the example of theFalkland Islands war. There the UnitedKingdom defeated the tyrannical Argentinemilitary regime and recovered possession ofthe islands. As a result of this defeat,Argentina’s illegitimate leaders were sohumiliated that the only thing for them todo was to relinquish power to civilians.Democracy then ensued in Argentina. Yetwhile many people would regard the Britishaction as justified (on grounds of self-defense, for example), they would not callthe British action humanitarian, and prop-erly so. While the restoration of democracyand human rights in Argentina was ahumanitarian outcome, neither the motivenor the intention of Prime Minister MargaretThatcher included freeing the Argentines.The liberation of Argentina was a relativelyremote consequence of the war. In contrast,in Iraq the Coalition intended to deposeHussein, as a means to something else (dis-arming Iraq, or neutralizing the enemies ofthe United States, or democratizing theregion; see below). In addition, insisting onright intent is necessary to devise a workableoperational definition of humanitarianintervention in international law and ethics;otherwise actions could not be judged whenthey are contemplated, since we would haveto wait for all the consequences of the actionto unfold.

Still, what the intervener does is the bestevidence of its intention. There are of coursemany examples of aggressive state behaviorcloaked in sanctimonious humanitarianlanguage. Yet all political institutions,including international law, should enablehuman flourishing and protect freedom,autonomy, and dignity. Therefore, weshould look at whether the intervention hasfurthered those goals, rescued the victims oftyranny, and restored justice and humanrights. The humanitarian outcome shouldbe a central factor in evaluating the inten-tion of the intervention. As I indicated,politicians, even in democratic states, willnever have pure humanitarian motives,because they have a fiduciary duty to theircitizens, and because they have other selfishpersonal motives, such as incumbency. Itfollows that in order to judge the legitimacyof intervention we must look at the situationas a whole. Two important indicators oflegitimacy are whether the intervener usedmeans consistent with the humanitarianpurpose, and whether it helped the countryto build free democratic institutions in thereconstruction stage.

The requirement of right intent as part ofthe justification of war has an old and ven-erable history as part of the just war tradi-tion. St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “Thosewho wage war should have a righteousintent: that is, they should intend either topromote a good cause or avert an evil.” Evenif the government has a just cause (forexample, removing tyranny), “that war maybe rendered unlawful by a wicked intent.”21

The Millian distinction I advance, however,differs from the distinction between justcause and right intent proposed by just war

21 R. W. Dyson, ed., Aquinas: Political Writings (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 241.


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theorists. For them, right intent seemsequivalent to Mill’s motive. The followingformulation of the requirement of the justwar conception of right intent is typical: “Inwar, not only the cause and the goals must bejust, but also our motive for responding tothe cause and taking up the goals.”22 Thisdefinition suggests that under just war doc-trine both intent and motive (in Mill’ssense) must be humanitarian or at leastmorally acceptable. Perhaps Millian intent(aiming to do something and doing it) isincluded in the notion of just cause.

This view is too demanding. It puts toomuch stock in the agent’s subjective stateand, in doing so, disallows many actions thatare objectively justified under any plausiblemoral theory. Take this obvious case: a polit-ical leader decides to stop genocide in aneighboring country (or, even less contro-versially, to defend that country againstaggression) because he thinks that is the wayto win reelection. If we require right motiveand not merely right intent, that war wouldbe unjust. Instead, I argue that we might dis-approve of the leader’s motives and stilljudge the action itself to be just.

Someone may retort that, in fact, we dooften make moral judgments based on theagent’s motives, so it is false to claim thatthey are morally irrelevant. Thus, for exam-ple, the reply goes, deposing a tyrant simplyto steal his wealth is morally wrong. But thismisses the distinction between judgingactions and judging persons. The word“wrong” in the sentence “deposing a tyrantto steal his wealth is wrong” is ambiguous. Itsuggests that the action of deposing thetyrant was wrong because the motive wasbad. But it is more plausible, I think, to saythat the sentence confusedly conveys ourmoral disapproval of the agent, not theaction. In order to judge whether the action(deposing the tyrant) was morally wrong,

we need to look at all the facts. Suppose thatI deposed a tyrant, called free elections, andhelped to install a democratic governmentthat respects human rights—all of which Ineed, let us assume, to capture the tyrant’swealth. I think it is plausible to say that myact of liberating the country was objectivelyjustified. My act intended to redress thewrong (as part of my plan to steal thetyrant’s wealth), and did it. I ended tyranny.My motives were such, however, that youcan justifiably criticize me, or penalize me inappropriate ways, or take steps to return thestolen wealth to the people from whom thedictator initially stole it. All of this is com-patible with saying that the overthrow of thetyrant was justified. Still, there is one quali-fication: both Mill and Aquinas agree that ifthe intent is “wicked” (Aquinas) or “atro-cious” (Mill), as when the “liberator”intends to visit equal or harsher treatmenton the “liberated,” the act cannot be consid-ered justified—the intervention cannot bedefined as humanitarian.

WHY THE INTERVENTION IN IRAQWAS JUSTIFIED: NARROW ANDGRAND STRATEGIES

Because critics of the war in Iraq fail to dis-tinguish between intention and motive, theyhastily dismiss the Coalition’s operation as acandidate for humanitarian intervention.Yet once we draw that distinction we canplausibly defend the intervention in Iraq onhumanitarian grounds. The Coalition in-tended to topple Hussein, committed todoing it, did it, and moreover, committeditself to helping Iraqis reconstruct their rav-

22 Mona Fixdal and Dan Smith, “Humanitarian Inter-vention and Just War,” Mershon International StudiesReview 42 (1998), p. 286.


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aged society on the basis of a liberal consti-tution, human rights, democracy, and creat-ing the conditions for economic recovery. Ifthe intention was to depose Hussein andthus end tyranny, then the fact that theUnited States had an ulterior motive may bea reason to lower our “moral estimation” ofthe United States’ government, as Mill says.Maybe it was a reason not to vote for GeorgeW. Bush. But it was definitely not a reason toconclude that the intervention itself “wasnot really” humanitarian, so that we are nowprecluded from evaluating the war underhumanitarian intervention principles. Wehave to separate our reasons for judgingactions from our reasons for judging agents.Let us assume, for the sake of argument, thatPresident Bush and Prime Minister Blair didnot really care about human rights in Iraq.Critics of the war have claimed that theirfailure initially to invoke the doctrine ofhumanitarian intervention means that theintervention was unprincipled, since theCoalition offered humanitarian reasonsonly after it failed to find weapons of massdestruction.23 But the fact that the leaderswho decree the intervention are unprinci-pled is independent of whether the act is jus-tified.24 If the Coalition leaders wereunprincipled (say they were merely trying tofind after-the-fact reasons that would vindi-cate them in the eyes of the public), thenthat is a reason to criticize them and eventu-ally make them pay the political price forerring or deceiving. But it is not a reason torefuse to even consider whether the inter-vention was justified on humanitariangrounds. It is bizarre to oppose the inter-vention in Iraq when it had the intent ofdeposing a horrific tyrant and did so, merelybecause the men leading the intervention hadmotives unrelated to the act of liberation.25

So far I have conceded, for the sake of argu-ment, that the Anglo-American leaders were

preeminently interested in suppressing secu-rity threats, and that the humanitarianmotives, if any, were secondary. But thisassumption is wrong. In reading the materialson the war, one is struck by the fact that, what-ever else was going on, the war against Iraq hadan unmistakable humanitarian component.Liberating Iraq was always part of the motiva-tion for the invasion. The public debate madeclear that, other things being equal, the factthat the target of military action was such anotorious tyrant was a reason in favor of thewar. Removing tyranny is not always a suffi-cient reason for war, but it certainly inclines ustoward intervention. The removal of Husseinwas central in the minds of political leadersthroughout the whole exercise. It is true, ascritics have pointed out, that Bush and Blairwere slow in embracing the humanitarianrationale for the war. But they did so, before,during, and after the war.26 During recon-struction, the emphasis on human rightsand democracy intensified, and culminated

23 See Falk, “What Future for the UN Charter System ofWar Prevention?” p. 597.24 Someone may insist that the way justifications enterthe public domain have a bearing on the correctness ofintervention. I am not persuaded by this objectionbecause, in my view, typical public deliberation suffersfrom serious pathologies that undermine its epistemiccredentials. See Guido Pincione and Fernando R. Tesón,Deliberation, Democracy, and Rationality (New York:Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).25 See Michael Ignatieff, “Why Are We in Iraq? (AndLiberia? And Afghanistan?),” New York Times Magazine,September 7, 2003, pp. 38ff.26 See, e.g., George W. Bush,“State of the Union,” January28, 2003; available at www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html#; his statements to thepress on the eve of the attack, “Threats and Responses:Excerpts from Joint News Conference ‘Tomorrow is aMoment of Truth,’” New York Times, March 17, 2003, p.A13; George W. Bush, “Address to the Nation,” March 19,2003; available at 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 Min-ister of the United Kingdom).

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with the Coalition’s organizing elections inIraq and the president’s second inauguraladdress on January 20, 2005.

From these facts it is possible to detect notone but two related yet distinct humanitar-ian rationales for the war in Iraq. The firstcan be described as the narrow humanitarianjustification. This I categorize, in accordancewith the discussion above, as the intention todepose Hussein and the act of doing so. Thisintention fits with the view of humanitarianintervention I proposed above: a war to res-cue victims of tyranny. There is no questionthat the Coalition intended to do exactly this.It aimed to do it, it committed itself to doingit, and it did it. The removal of Husseinbrought, in addition, prospects of freedomand democracy to the Iraqis. This directintention was shown by numerous state-ments and actions by Coalition leaders, andit included the willingness to surrender Hus-sein for trial on charges of crimes againsthumanity. On January 30, 2005, eight millionIraqis voted freely in a successful election.Even before these recent developments, therewere signs (concealed behind the under-standable emphasis of the media on insur-gent violence) that good things werehappening in Iraq.27 If things go well, thecountry will have, for the first time in its his-tory, a liberal constitution that will hopefullyguarantee human rights and the rule of law.Most well-motivated observers have wel-comed these developments, regardless oftheir political affiliation (witness the praisefrom liberal quarters).28 Surely these eventsmust count in any evaluation of the warunder humanitarian intervention principles.

But an examination of the record disclosesa second humanitarian rationale, which Iwill call the grand (and, because of its bold-ness, more disquieting) humanitarianmotive for the intervention in Iraq (again, inaddition to other motives, such as disarming

the regime). This is the grand plan thatapparently underlies American strategy afterthe September 11, 2001, attacks, and can besummarized in one sentence: Defeating theenemies of the United States requires pro-moting liberal reforms in the Middle Eastand, indeed, the entire world. Removing theregimes in Afghanistan and Iraq is part ofthat strategy. The strategy also includes thesuccessful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinianconflict, as well as promoting liberal reformsin other Arab countries, both friend (such asEgypt and Saudi Arabia), and foe (such asLibya and Syria). With respect to the war inIraq, the grand strategy is part of the moti-vation, not the intent, but it is no lesshumanitarian. This grand strategy ishumanitarian in a broad sense, because itinvolves fighting tyranny by peaceful and(where required) military means. Theintended act was to liberate the Iraqis; themotivation was to enhance the security ofthe United States by promoting liberalreforms in the Middle East and elsewhere.29

President Bush clearly articulated thegrand strategy in his second inauguraladdress.30 There he announced that it was“the policy of the United States to seek andsupport the growth of democratic move-ments and institutions in every nation andculture, with the ultimate goal of ending


27 See “Democracy Stirs in the Middle East,” Economist,March 5, 2005, p. 9.28 See “Grudging Respect,” New Republic, March 21,2005, p. 7.29 Someone could perhaps call the “grand strategy” anintention, but I think it is more accurately described asmotivation. For even if the security of the United Statesis not enhanced, and even if the Middle East or the restof the world are not democratized, Iraq would still beliberated.30 The text of the address can be found in “There Is NoJustice Without Freedom,” Washington Post, January 21,2005, p. 24; available at www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/articles/A23747-2005Jan20.html. I quote from there.

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tyranny in the world.” In this conception,values and interests converge, since “the survival of liberty in our land increasinglydepends on the success of liberty in otherlands.” Peace and liberty are linked in Kant-ian fashion, for “the best hope for peace inour world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.” Critics were quick to point out that this speech evinced yet moreaggressive purposes, such as invading Iranor Syria. This criticism, however, overlooksthe president’s cautionary remark that thepromotion of global freedom “is not pri-marily the task of arms.”

The doctrine of the second inauguraladdress, in its abstract form, is admirable.But that does not automatically mean thatits application to this particular case is jus-tified.31 One may reject it for two reasons. Itmay be conducted in impermissible ways,or it may simply fail. The grand strategymay violate the strictures of the doctrine ofdouble effect by violating deontologicalconstraints or imposing unacceptablecosts; alternatively, it may be unsuccessful.As Michael Walzer has reminded us, justi-fied wars (and political strategies thatinclude wars) must have reasonablechances of success.32 It is far from clear thatthis strategy will succeed, and if it collapses,so will the humanitarian justification.Unfortunately, success is an integral part ofthe justification for war, even if it can onlybe determined ex post. Should the Coali-tion fail to liberate Iraq (narrow strategy),to democratize and pacify the Middle East,and to promote liberal democracy in theworld (grand strategy), then the judgmentof history on the whole effort will be, nodoubt, less kind.

I would like to make two points in cau-tious defense of the grand strategy. First,the grand humanitarian rationale properlyunderscores the link between freedom and

peace. It assumes (correctly, I think) thatdemocracies are more peaceful, and thatthe surer way to neutralize the enemies ofthe West is to help ordinary people in theMiddle East get rid of their authoritarianregimes.33 Second, as of this writing thereare some indications that the grand strat-egy may be working. Events in Palestine,Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syriaallow for (very cautious) optimism. Ordi-nary citizens in Arab countries have beenemboldened by the announcement of theU.S. policy that it will not support repres-sive regimes.34 Yielding to popular pres-sure, Syrian troops have left Lebanon aftertwenty-nine years of occupation. In Egypt,President Mubarak announced importantpolitical reforms. Saudi Arabia held its firstelection in its history (although flawed forlack of women’s vote).35 In Iraq itself, thereare conflicting signs about whether theinsurgency may be picking up or windingdown,36 and any enthusiasm would be pre-mature, as history has taught us not to betoo optimistic about that troubled region.Yet surely critics must concede at least the


31 Cf. Kant’s distinction between pure and impure duty.See Robert B. Louden, Kant’s Impure Ethics (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 9.32 Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York:Basic Books, 1977), pp. 109–26.33 See the discussion in Fernando R. Tesón, A Philoso-phy of International Law (Boulder, Colo.: WestviewPress, 1998), ch. 1.34 See “Special Report, Middle East: Something Stirs,”Economist, March 5, 2005, pp. 24–26; Neil MacFar-quhar, “Unexpected Whiff of Freedom Proves Bracingfor Mideast,” New York Times, March 6, 2005, p. 1.35 See Todd S. Purdum, “For Bush, No Boasts, but aTaste of Vindication,” New York Times, March 9, 2005,p. 10.36 Compare John F. Burns, “On Iraq’s Street of Fear,The Tide May Be Turning,” New York Times, March 21,2005, p. A1, with John F. Burns and Eric Schmitt, “Gen-erals Offer Sober Outlook on Iraqi War,” New YorkTimes, May 19, 2005, p. A1.

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possibility that the grand strategy may nothave been as reckless as they thought.37 InPalestine, the death of Yassir Arafat, thepromise of pullout by Israel, and the recentmeetings between President Bush and theIsraeli and Palestinian leaders may offer aglimmer of hope for this most intractableof conflicts.

One last point about intent. A critic mayclaim that removing Hussein does not yetturn the action into a humanitarian inter-vention. The Coalition should haveintended, in addition, to establish a liberaldemocracy, or at least to secure basichuman rights in Iraq. Because (amongother things) the United States apparentlydid not properly plan for the reconstruc-tion stage, the criticism goes, the interven-tion was not humanitarian but merelypunitive. As a preliminary matter, it is farfrom obvious that it is wrong to depose aruler guilty of atrocities in order to get himpunished—say, by surrendering him to theInternational Criminal Court. Be that as itmay, I agree that had the Coalition merelywanted to remove Hussein and thenremained utterly indifferent to what hap-pened to the Iraqi people, the interven-tion’s humanitarian character would havebeen in doubt. Imagine that the Coalition,after removing Hussein, would have turnedthe country over to an equally vicious (butpro-Western) ruler. Such action wouldhave shown “atrocious” or “wicked” intentand would have deprived the interventionof any humanitarian character, for the rea-sons Mill and Aquinas gave. But, clearly,that was not the case, however imperfectthe planning might have been. The UnitedStates is attempting (clumsily perhaps) tohelp the Iraqis rebuild their society alongliberal lines, and, despite ferocious insur-gency, the enterprise may succeed. TheUnited States and the United Kingdom

never intended only to punish Hussein.They could have done that simply byremoving him and then leaving the coun-try—indeed, in that way they would havesaved Coalition lives and billions of dollars.That they remained in Iraq partly in pur-suit of national interest means that theyhad a nonaltruistic (yet defensible) motive.But their staying means that they intendedto go beyond punishment of the tyrant. Sothe humanitarian action is this: the intentto remove a vicious dictator, plus removinghim, plus not allowing this act of liberationto be destroyed by behavior driven by anynonhumanitarian motive. By helping Iraqin the way I described (organizing elec-tions, facilitating the liberal constitution,and fighting the insurgents), the Coalitionhas satisfied the strictures of the humani-tarian intervention doctrine.

Having established that the war in Iraqsatisfies the first principle of the humani-tarian intervention doctrine I outlined ear-lier, that a justifiable intervention must beaimed at ending tyranny or anarchy, I turnto examine the intervention under myother principles. The war in Iraq, I will con-clude, fares reasonably well. I will concen-trate on three criticisms of the war: that theIraqi regime, bad as it was, did not qualifyas a proper target of intervention; that theintervention was illegitimate because it wasnot welcomed by the Iraqis; and that theintervention was illegitimate because itlacked proper authority.38

37 Even in France, where defending the war is quite arisky business, some voices have started wondering.See Guy Sorman, “Et si Bush avait raison?” Le Figaro,February 26, 2005, p. 10.38 Space constraints prevent me from discussing herean important additional question: whether the costsof the intervention were morally acceptable. Iaddress the point in Tesón, Humanitarian Interven-tion, ch. 10.


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WHY IRAQ WAS A CASE OF SEVERETYRANNY

Supporters of humanitarian interventionagree that the bar for intervention should beset high.39 One would have thought that ifever a government met that standard, Hus-sein’s regime did. Many critics of the inter-vention grudgingly concede that at least thisrequirement was met. During his twenty-four-year rule, Hussein presided over a stateof terror.40 In addition to suppressing allcivil and political liberties, Hussein mur-dered around 100,000 Kurds in 1988; killedabout 300,000 Shia after the 1991 war; buriedabout 30,000 in a single grave; murderedaround 40,000 marsh Arabs; caused mil-lions of people to flee; and tortured manyhundreds of thousands, perhaps millions,between 1968 and 2003.41 His cruelty andruthlessness are legendary, and even theharshest critics of the war do not challengethe propriety of committing him to trial forwar crimes and crimes against humanity.

In a report released in January 2004 andwidely echoed in the media, however, Ken-neth Roth, executive director of HumanRights Watch, argued that the war in Iraqcannot be justified as humanitarian inter-vention because the regime was not tyranni-cal enough at the time of the invasion.42

Roth gives several arguments (includinglack of humanitarian intent, which I alreadydiscussed), but his main one is that “thescope of the Iraqi government’s killing inMarch 2003 was not of the exceptional anddire magnitude that would justify humani-tarian intervention.” For Human RightsWatch, only countries where there are ongo-ing or imminent atrocities qualify as targetsfor intervention. Hussein had perpetratedhis major crimes before the war, and maybeintervention would have been justified then.But by 2003, his victims were in exile, in

prison, or buried in mass graves. Since Hus-sein didn’t seem to be committing any newatrocities, intervention to remove him at themoment the Coalition did could not be jus-tified on humanitarian grounds.

Of course, if the perpetration of ongoingatrocities were a sine qua non requirementof the legitimacy of intervention, then bydefinition the intervention in Iraq wouldnot qualify. But the standard proposed byHuman Rights Watch is inadequate. If itwere correct, all that mass murderers wouldhave to do to avoid being overthrown is tospeed up the executions. One of the mostterrifying facts of World War II was thespeed and determination with which thecrumbling Nazi regime kept exterminatingJews until the very last moments of the war.Under the theory endorsed by HumanRights Watch, Hitler could not have beenlegitimately removed, on humanitariangrounds alone, once there would have beenno more Jews to save. The Pakistani mili-tary would have been better off finishing itsjob of exterminating Bengalis quickly inorder to block any argument for thehumanitarian legitimacy of India’s action.And Slobodan Milosevic should have donethe same thing in Kosovo in 1999. And, as I


39 See, e.g., ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, pp. 31–32.40 The regime’s brutality has been amply documented.The ever-present terror visited on Iraqis by the secretpolice and similar branches of the ruling Baathist Partyare well described in Kanan Makiya, Republic of Fear:The Politics of Modern Iraq (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1998), esp. chs. 1 and 2.41 See, inter alia, Con Coughlin, Saddam: King of Terror(New York: HarperCollins, 2002); Louis Wiley, Sad-dam’s Killing Fields, vol. 1 (videocassette) (Alexandria,Va.: PBS Video, 1992). The Iraqis themselves are com-piling millions of documents attesting to the horrors ofthe regime. See the work of the Iraq Memory Founda-tion at www.iraqmemory.org.42 Ken Roth, “War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Inter-vention,” Human Rights Watch World Report 2004;available at hrw.org/wr2k4/3.htm.

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indicated above, it is far from obvious thatremoving a perpetrator of past atrocities inorder to have him punished by the appro-priate courts should not count as humani-tarian intervention.

For those reasons, the bar should be set atthe perpetration of severe tyranny, whichincludes not only consummated or ongoingatrocities, but also pervasive and seriousforms of oppression. The Kosovo Commis-sion, perceptively, saw that it was unreason-able to set a standard of ongoing killings forjustification under the doctrine. The com-mission declared that the intervention hadbeen morally legitimate, not only because ithad stopped ongoing ethnic cleansing, butbecause “it had the effect of liberating themajority of the population of Kosovo froma long period of oppression under Serbianrule.”43 This is exactly the right standard forIraq as well. Rulers like Hussein remainproper targets of intervention even afterthey have committed their worst crimes, andpervasive, violent, cruel, and continuousoppression made Iraq a good candidate forhumanitarian intervention. The notion thatall mass murderers have to do to remainsafely in power is to stop murdering shouldbe rejected. In fact, at some point masskillings have to stop. Hutus cannot continueaxing Tutsis to death in Rwanda forever. Yetunder the Human Rights Watch standard,the most efficient mass murderers areimmune to intervention.44

HOW IRAQIS WELCOMED THEINTERVENTION

There is solid evidence that the great major-ity of ordinary Iraqi citizens have seen theoverthrow of Hussein as a blessing, the bestthing that has happened to them duringtheir lifetimes.45 In fact, some Iraqis maystill find it difficult to believe that Hussein

will not return to power—such is the level oftrauma produced by the tyrant’s pervasiverepressive methods.46

Critics, however, are not convinced. Theyclaim that the armed resistance in Iraqshows that the Iraqis did not want to be res-cued, that the war was a unilateral act of theCoalition, insensitive and indifferent to thewishes of the Iraqi population.47 For thesecritics, in order for the intervention to belegitimate, it (and subsequent liberalreforms) must be accepted by the Iraqipopulation. The more insurgency there is,the less justifiable the war was in the firstplace, because even if the Coalitionintended to liberate the Iraqis, continued

43 Independent International Commission on Kosovo,Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Response, LessonsLearned (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 4;emphasis added.44 I do not address here whether intervention is justi-fied to spread democracy, or to establish liberal institu-tions in societies that suffer not severe but “ordinary”tyranny. The Iraqi regime certainly met the standard ofsevere tyranny I propose.45 This is particularly obvious when the Iraqis them-selves (as opposed to critics of the war) are allowed tospeak. See, e.g., Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani,“What Iraq Needs Now,” New York Times, July 9, 2003, p.A21. See also Stephen Morris, “Why We Had to Fight—Iraq 366 Days Later,” Weekend Australian, March 20,2004, p. 28; Daniel Byman, “Constructing a DemocraticIraq: Challenges and Opportunities,”International Secu-rity 28, no. 1 (2003), pp. 47–78; and Nancy Gibbs,“Whenthe Cheering Stops: Jubilation and Chaos Greet the Fallof the Saddam Regime,” Time, April 21, 2003, p. 40.46 Paul Berman, “Silence and Cruelty,” New RepublicOnline, June 17, 2004, contends that Iraqis had suffered“psychological demolition.”47 See, e.g., Jeffrey Gettleman, “Anti-U.S. OutrageUnites a Growing Iraqi Resistance,” New York Times,April 11, 2004, p. 14. There was, of course, ex ante anxi-ety and suspicion at the occupation, which expressedthe legitimate desire of the great majority of Iraqis thatthe Coalition leave once it could plausibly do so. Butthese sentiments are perfectly severable from the wel-come by the great majority of the Iraqis of their libera-tion. My discussion here addresses only the claim thatthe insurgency alone is evidence of the Iraqi will not tobe liberated.


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insurgency means that the Iraqis did notwant to be liberated after all. The war (theobjection concludes) was not for them.Fierce insurgency also portends somethingeven worse: the failure of the whole enter-prise of ending tyranny.

Critics are right that if the insurgency wins,the entire effort will be called into question,because everyone (especially Iraqis) will havea right to say that the outcome was not worththe cost. But it is a mistake to believe that thedetermination and ferocity of the enemy isthe yardstick for the legitimacy of war. Theclaim seems to be that the fiercer the tyrantand his henchmen, the less justified we are inconfronting them because that ferocity isindication of popular support. But this, ofcourse, does not follow. First, the evidence isinconsistent with the claim that the insur-gents enjoy broad popular support.48 More-over, it is implausible to think that the greatmajority of the people would, irrationally,support those who wish to restore the tyrant(or someone like him). Second, unless thetyrant is so powerful that victory is simplyimpossible, it is wrong to pin the justificationof the war on the ferocity of the enemy. Thereason is that the Iraqi resistance is a criminalenterprise. Its purpose is to restore the brutalrule of Hussein in Iraq (or something like it)and, more generally, to defeat the forces ofdemocracy and human rights and installtotalitarian, premodern political structures.These insurgents are, most likely, either theaccomplices in Hussein’s past atrocities orallies in the terrorist war against the Coalitionand the West; therefore, their opposition tointervention does not count. Dictators andtheir henchmen do not have defensive rightsagainst interventions aimed at removingthem.49 The old notions of self-defense andsovereignty are useless here. When tyrantsoppose a justified humanitarian interventionthey are not defending the state; they are

defending themselves, clinging to power. TheIraqi insurgents, then, are fighting an unjustwar. They are not fighting for their homelandagainst the invader: they are fighting for thedeposed tyrant against the Iraqi people andits allies. It follows that the ferocity and deter-mination of their fight cannot be a reason tostop fighting them—unless victory is impos-sible. Surely the powerful German counter-offensive in the Ardennes raised the costs ofthe war, but no one has suggested that theAllied effort was unjustified for that reason.One great insight of leaders such as FranklinD. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill was tounderstand that that war had to be fought,that the West’s commitment to freedomrequired the courage to fight, especially whenthe costs were high.

THE QUESTION OF APPROVAL OFTHE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

A frequent criticism of the war is that theUnited States failed to enlist internationalsupport, in particular from sister democra-cies.50 Unfortunately, this important insti-tutional issue became yet another casualtyof electoral politics in the United States.Critics of the administration treated thepresident as militaristic and unilateral,while Vice President Cheney retorted that,under a Republican watch, America willnever have to get a “permission slip” todefend its interests.


48 The evidence suggests that the insurgency is domi-nated by the disempowered Sunni minority, but alsothat not all Sunnis are sympathetic to it. See Liz Sly,“Sunni Political Front Takes Shape,” Chicago Tribune,May 22, 2005, p. C9.49 See Fernando R. Tesón, “Self-Defense in Interna-tional Law and Rights of Persons,” Ethics � Interna-tional Affairs 18, no. 1 (2004), pp. 87–91.50 See, e.g., James P. Rubin, “Stumbling into War,”Foreign Affairs 82, no. 5 (2003), pp. 46–68.

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My own view is that, when intervening forhumanitarian reasons, it is preferable to havethe support of the community of democraticstates.51 This did not happen in Iraq, but Ithink that, while lack of support was regret-table, it did not invalidate the intervention.

The question of proper authority is one ofthe most divisive topics in the humanitarianintervention debate.52 There are, broadly,three positions. The first is the view thathumanitarian intervention is legitimateonly when authorized by the UN SecurityCouncil.53 The second is the view thathumanitarian intervention is legitimateonly when approved or supported by thecommunity of democratic states (whetheror not the Security Council also approvesit). And the third one, which I defend here,is the view that while approval by the com-munity of democratic states (whether or notthe Security Council also approves) is prefer-able, sometimes unauthorized interventionby democratic governments is morally justi-fied. The war in Iraq is one such case.

The UN Security Council is inadequate asthe guardian of human life and freedom.First, the right of veto is morally arbitrary,because it gives disproportionate power tosome states, and because it means thathumanitarian intervention will never beavailable against permanent members ortheir friends. Second, the right to vetoincreases the chances of inertia and inactionin the face of tyranny or anarchy. Third, theSecurity Council suffers from seriousdeficits in moral legitimacy. The legitimacyproblem I have in mind is not the lack of gov-ernmental inclusiveness, or poor regionalrepresentation. On the contrary: the factthat the West has disproportionate influencein the Security Council is one of its good fea-tures.54 The legitimacy problem is simplythe fact that some of those who sit on thecouncil do not meet standard requirements

of political legitimacy. One of the perma-nent members, China, is itself a highly ques-tionable regime. And, usually, several of thenonpermanent members are themselvesillegitimate by any plausible measure. It isunacceptable that the decision whether tofree people from tyranny, or to veto any suchdecision, be left to illegitimate regimes.

International lawyers, however, insist onthe need for Security Council authoriza-tion.55 Part of the explanation for this insis-tence is a misplaced faith on process. Lawyerslike process, any process. Maintaining the

51 Thus, I am generally favorable to the proposal byAllen Buchanan and Robert O. Keohane, “The Pre-ventive Use of Force: A Cosmopolitan InstitutionalProposal,” Ethics � International Affairs 18, no. 1(2004), pp. 1–22, although they view approval by dem-ocratic states as a constraint, and not just as a desir-able practice.52 See, inter alia, ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect,pp. 47–55; Wheeler, Saving Strangers, pp. 40–48; Rams-botham and Woodhouse, Humanitarian Interventionin Contemporary Conflict, pp. 157–62; and Mark S.Stein, “Unauthorized Humanitarian Intervention,”Social Philosophy and Policy 21, no. 1 (2004), pp. 14–38.53 This is the position held by a majority of legal scholars.54 Requiring democratic or human rights credentialsfor members of the Security Council is not among theproposals for reform. The recent UN report on thematter only recommends increasing “the democraticand accountable nature of the body.” See A More SecureWorld: Our Shared Responsibility—Report of the Secre-tary-General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Challengesand Change (New York: United Nations, 2004), p. 80.55 See, e.g., Michael Byers and Simon Chesterman,“Changing the Rules about Rules? Unilateral Human-itarian Intervention and the Future of InternationalLaw,” in J. L. Holzgrefe and Robert O. Keohane, eds.,Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Politi-cal Dilemmas (New York: Cambridge University Press,2003), pp. 181–84. Other legal scholars believe, moresensibly, that the Kosovo precedent introduced uncer-tainty regarding this requirement. See, e.g., JaneStromseth, “Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention:The Case for Incremental Change,” in Holzgrefe andKeohane, eds., Humanitarian Intervention, p. 177; andThomas M. Franck,“Interpretation and Change in theLaw of Humanitarian Intervention,” in Holzgrefe andKeohane, eds., Humanitarian Intervention, p. 204.


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forms of law is important to them, so ifthere is any kind of international process inplace that involves voting, for example,then to them only this process can yieldlegitimate decisions. But the moral cur-rency of any process is surely related to thecredentials of those who participate. Thereis no value in the decision-making processthat took place, say, within the Taliban’sinner “cabinet.” A decision by the Talibanleadership to stone women alive for adul-tery is not legitimized by voting in the “cab-inet.” Procedures in the United Nationsorgans give the illusion of democratic legit-imacy, but it takes little reflection to seethat those procedures bear only a paleresemblance to genuine democracy. Deci-sions to assist victims of tyranny shouldnot depend on the acquiescence of therulers who at best do not represent theirpeople, and at worst are tyrants themselves.

Someone may reply that established pro-cedures, even defective ones, yield impor-tant benefits because they impose at leastminimum order on an international soci-ety marked by anarchy.56 I do not evaluatehere this claim in its general form, but evenconceding that sometimes orderlyprocesses may yield important benefits inthe sense claimed by “minimalist” scholars,I don’t think that authorization of force bythe Security Council falls in that category.For, just imagine if weapons of massdestruction had been in Iraq, and theUnited States had decided to abide byprocess and not invade to remove theweapons, only to suffer an attack by terror-ists armed by Hussein. What benefits doesthat kind of process yield? And critics can-not say, with the benefit of hindsight, thatthe weapons were not there after all,because no one knew that—especially gov-ernments, such as the French, which led theeffort to block authorization. In short:

authorization by the Security Council is,like voting in the UN General Assembly, amere semblance of process. Not only does itlack moral legitimacy; it does not evensecure order, let alone justice.57

Humanitarian intervention, therefore,should in principle be approved or sup-ported by a democratic alliance or coali-tion.58 These are the governments thatmeet two requirements: they uphold theliberal values of respect and democraticlegitimacy, and they are morally entitled tospeak for the citizens who will bear the bur-den of the intervention. They are also thosewho will, one would hope, uphold liberalvalues in the reconstruction phase. Anappropriate institutional design shouldreform the system of authorization to useforce in the international system today.

Yet authorization may fail and the atroc-ities go unchecked. Much has been writtenabout the problem of inaction in the face ofsevere humanitarian crises. Tragedies inRwanda and Kosovo show that sometimes


56 This minimalist view of order has a rich tradition.See, e.g., Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study ofOrder in World Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1977), pp. 3–21. For a reflection on theconcept of order and its relation to justice, see AndrewHurrell, “Order and Justice in International Relations:What Is at Stake?” in Rosemary Foot, John Lewis Gad-dis, and Andrew Hurrell, eds., Order and Justice in Inter-national Relations (New York: Oxford University Press,2003), pp. 24–48.57 Eric Posner and John Yoo have suggested that the UNis increasingly used as a forum to oppose U.S. efforts touse force and that it hampers in various ways theadvancement of international law. Eric Posner andJohn Yoo, “Where’s the Old Bolton When We NeedHim?” Los Angeles Times, April 19, 2005, p. B13. If, as Isuspect, they are correct, the United States has a validreason to ignore the UN when the United States is try-ing to do the right thing, as in Iraq.58 Buchanan and Keohane, in “The Preventive Use ofForce,” pp. 16–22, propose a two-stage system thatincludes Security Council action, under the assump-tion that reforming the Security Council is unrealistic.

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governments must act without approval.Even the report of the International Com-mission on Intervention and State Sover-eignty, generally hostile to unauthorizedintervention, could not exclude completelythe possibility that sometimes unilateralaction may be the only way to end a severehumanitarian crisis.59 Perhaps the innova-tive mechanisms proposed by AllenBuchanan and Robert Keohane can createthe right incentives that would avert thedangers attendant on unauthorized ac-tion.60 But in any case, the argument that humanitarian intervention is some-times acceptable even without authoriza-tion should be available to citizens ofdemocratic societies.

In the case of Iraq, the Security Coun-cil failed to authorize the action. But whywould those who oppose the war in Iraq on the merits have accepted it had theUnited States and its allies succeeded intwisting the arm of the council members to go along? If Hussein was not a propertarget of humanitarian intervention, thenhe was not a proper target in any case. Thisis true especially if one is concerned withthe morality of the war, and not just withformal procedures. One who believes thewar in Iraq was immoral cannot changethat judgment just because the SecurityCouncil voted to approve the invasion.He would have to say that the council acted immorally.61

Be that as it may, it would have been bet-ter for the Coalition to secure the supportof sister democracies. One assumption offavoring approval by the community ofdemocratic nations is that the interest of itsmembers is normally to restore humanrights, democracy, and the rule of law introubled societies. Unfortunately, this wasnot the case here, and the Anglo-Americanleaders had to act virtually alone.

CONSERVATIVES, LIBERALS, ORPROGRESSIVES?

The grand strategy that encompasses thewar in Iraq and the commitment of theUnited States to promoting global freedomis not the simple product of militaristic, rad-ical conservatives, as many have said, even if,of course, the present administration is con-servative. I see this effort very differently. Iinterpret it as the natural continuation of anextraordinary idealistic, transformative, lib-erating impulse in the American Republic,one that ties the current effort in Iraq withWoodrow Wilson’s pro-democratic doc-trine, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s conviction infighting European fascism, Jimmy Carter’scourage in putting human rights at the topof his foreign policy agenda, Ronald Rea-gan’s landmark victory against communisttyranny, and Bill Clinton’s inspired leader-ship in Kosovo, Haiti, and elsewhere duringthe happier days of globalization. I believeall persons committed to liberal values inthe broad sense, be they conservatives, liber-als, or progressives, should support the warin Iraq.62 The vision of ridding the world oftyrants has been part of at least a segment ofconservative thought (neoconservatism, forexample), liberal-internationalist aspira-tions, and liberal-left humanitarian princi-ples. Furthermore, promoting freedom anddemocracy is in everyone’s interest in the

59 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, pp. 54–55.60 See Buchanan and Keohane, “The Preventive Use ofForce.”61 Like the ICISS, Human Rights Watch correctly seesthis problem, and Ken Roth stops short of suggesting inhis essay, “War in Iraq,” that lack of approval invariablymeans unlawfulness.62 Thus I disagree with Suzanne Nossel, who claims thatprogressives must rescue liberal internationalism from“the Bush Administration’s militarism” and “militantimperiousness.” Suzanne Nossel, “Smart Power,” For-eign Affairs 83, no. 2 (2004), p. 131.


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West, regardless of political affiliation. Yetlarge segments of world opinion have beenunwilling to find anything positive in theIraq effort. The protest movement thatswept the globe against the war in Iraq wasone of the depressing sights of those difficultdays. In the words of Paul Berman, one ofthe few men of the Left with the courage andvision to understand the moral import ofthe war: “A truly large and powerful move-ment took to the streets . . . and this was notto denounce the terrible dictatorship, but toprevent an invasion from overthrowing theterrible dictatorship.”63 This public con-demnation is, to my mind, incomprehensi-ble: the murderer is the victim, the liberatoris the criminal, and the real victims are nevermentioned.64 And human rights organiza-tions, sadly, had nothing to say about the lib-eration of millions of Iraqis (and Afghans)from decades of terrible oppression, orabout the mass graves that the Coalition hasconsistently uncovered in the Iraqi desert.65

Conservative, liberal, or progressive, weshould not protect tyrants under the guise ofdefending peace. And above all, we shouldnot neglect those who were supposed to bethe rightful beneficiaries of the new globalorder: the world’s vulnerable, those men,women, and children reduced to strugglingfor bare survival by the inhuman power thattyrants wield over them.

63 Berman, “Silence and Cruelty.”64 Space limitations prevent me from addressing thequestion of the costs of the Iraqi war. I discuss it inTesón, Humanitarian Intervention, ch. 10. While ofcourse the death of innocents in the war is regrettable,I believe the war has generally complied with the stric-tures of the doctrine of double effect. For a general dis-cussion, see Fernando R. Tesón, “The Liberal Case forHumanitarian Intervention,” in Holzgrefe and Keo-hane, eds., Humanitarian Intervention, pp. 93–129.65 For two recent findings, see Sabrina Tavernise, “Endof the Line for Families of Baghdad’s Missing: The CityMorgue,” New York Times, May 20, 2005, p. 10; andRobert F. Worth, “Iraqis Find Graves Thought to HoldHussein’s Victims,” New York Times, April 15, 2005, p. 8.

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