Abstract
The end of the cold war, brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union, signaled a sea change in the conduct of world politics. One of the more significant changes to take place was the “loosening” of the just war tradition, which has occurred in the wake of the Soviet Union’s disintegration.1 This loosening amounts to a more favorable disposition toward interventionist politics and represents a reversal of the narrowing and tightening of the jus ad bellum that took place over the previous two hundred years. The reality of such a shift was made most visible by the unorthodox just cause arguments that accompanied the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The invasion of Iraq was variously justified by President Bush and Prime Minister Blair in terms of anticipatory war, humanitarian war, and punitive war. These arguments appear alien to the modern jus ad bellum, focused on aggression and self-defense as it is, with which most contemporary just war theorists will be familiar.2 Yet these unorthodox arguments were represented time and again by Bush and Blair as providing a bona fide just cause for war.
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Chapter 1
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© 2008 Cian O’Driscoll
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O’Driscoll, C. (2008). The Just War Tradition and the Invasion of Iraq: A Historical Perspective. In: The Renegotiation of the Just War Tradition and the Right to War in the Twenty-First Century. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230612037_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230612037_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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