Abstract
Thus far, I have presented the case that the jus ad bellum debate generated by the invasion of Iraq was phrased in much broader terms than one might have expected, especially given the narrow form the right to war had assumed over the course of the twentieth century. Chapter 1 recounted the rise of the restrictive legalist paradigm and submitted it as constituting the dominant mode of jus ad bellum discourse since the conclusion of the First World War. Following this, Chapters 2, 3, and 4 related how the various justifications offered (by Bush and Blair) for the invasion of Iraq disregarded this mold and suggested, respectively, that the ends of anticipation, punishment, and humanitarianism provided grounds for the use of force against Iraq in March 2003. Additionally, these chapters demonstrated how these various justifications resonated with a number of tropes, themes, and commitments usually associated with certain classical articulations of just war. Collectively, then, these chapters comprise an extended analysis of the innovative and potentially consequential manner in which the just war tradition was engaged by Bush and Blair as they sought to legitimate an extremely divisive war. Chapter 5 extended this analysis by examining the manner by which the just war tradition is referred to, and deployed, in the course of moral debate, while also indicating how the tradition might be reconstituted through this very activity. In doing so, it sought to draw out and elaborate the various assumptions, conditions, and commitments that we construe as the defining postulates of the tradition. It concluded that the just war tradition is best approached as a self-reflexive tradition comprising a moral vocabulary and mode of reasoning, historically associated with the idea of just war, and an interpretative community arguing about how best to make sense of it.
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Chapter 6
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© 2008 Cian O’Driscoll
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O’Driscoll, C. (2008). The Right to War after Iraq: Change, Continuity, and Contestation. 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_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230612037_7
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