A fourth principle for going to war is to have the right intention to do so. Why do we want to bomb Iran? The signals from Mr. Bush and company are mixed: to stop them from producing nuclear weapons (refuted by the "timetable" of Iranian production, noted above); to spread democracy (not only a direct violation of international law, as we shall see below, but already a miserable failure so far in Iraq, the country of the great suffering populous resulting from the Bush invasion); to prevent terrorism (no solid evidence has been presented that Iran is connected to al Qaeda or other terrorist networks). So far, this ethical criterion is far from being met by the Bush administration regarding Iran.
Another necessary condition for a military campaign requires that the action be predictably successful. As we will see when we line up the conceivable backfires of such an attack on Iranian installations, this condition would not be met by a U.S. bombing of Iran. Seymour Hersh examines in great detail the fact that the Pentagon brass is highly dubious that a strike on Iran would be at all successful. Beyond this, we can question whether a strike on Iran will be successful by examining the alleged reason Bush wants to bomb the country: its connection to terrorism. Even if it turns out to be true that Iran has provided some weapons to Hezbollah and/or the Iraqi resistance, this does not mandate a U.S. military strike on their nuclear facilities. The U.S. has recourse to the U.N. Security Council for its complaints, as it is mandated to do by international law. More importantly under this principle, though, it must be recognized that because terrorism is a process, not a country or concrete enemy, there is no infrastructure, no governmental apparatus, no army, no territory, and no concrete way of apprising whether or not success has been achieved. Thus, this condition alone negates the militarism of the Bush administration, launched as it is under the blanket term of "terrorism."
Finally, the ethical principles used to judge war require that civilians remain unharmed to the greatest degree possible, and that any harm that comes to them must not be in great numbers. The problem for the Bush regime is that some of Iran's most extensive nuclear production plants are in or near civilian centers, and the possibility of hitting them without concomitantly killing large numbers of civilians in the process is a minimal.
III. International Law
But few persons are so naive as to believe that an appeal to moral principles alone is sufficient for a critique of unwarranted and dangerous military action. James Madison said it best in the Federalist Papers: "If the impulse and opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control" (Federalist n. 10). So if moral principles will not stop Bush and Cheney, the possibility that they could be wind up being charged as war criminals might give them pause. Well, on second thought, probably not. However, a population of U.S. citizens who know the ethics and the laws of war and who demand that Bush and Cheney stand down when it comes to Iran, at the cost of the Republican party being thrown out of power in the Legislative and Executive branches of American government, might be a bit more of a deterrent than appealing to their (lack of) consciences.
International law is quite clear about one country attacking another country unprovoked. Since international law derived from the ethical principles of war, examined above, we will scrutinize international law on war by attempting to stay close the categories we used in discussing the ethical principles concerning warfare.
First, one must look at the Charter of the United Nations, to which it is untiringly added that the U.S. is a signatory to and thus bound by it, as our Constitution requires (Article III, Section 2). The U.N. Charter very specifically states the international understanding of a "just cause" in Article 51. However, prior to that, the general rule of relations between nations is stated in Article 2: "All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state..." But it does recognize that there are times when the use of force becomes necessary. The sole exception to the presumption against military force in Article 2 is self-defense, contained in Article 51. This is largely recognized to include an imminent attack in addition to a real one. It need hardly be remarked here that Iran in no way poses such a threat to the United States. Even if it did, the U.S. has legal recourse to the U.N. Security Council, but no legal recourse to military attack. In addition, Article 33 of the Charter states that "parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice." That the Bush administration rejects this is clear from their doctrine of preventive war, contained in the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, and states that the U.S. now reserves the right to attack any nation they perceive as being potentially harmful to their interests. This policy, called "pre-emptive war" by the Bush administration, but "preventive war" by everyone else, in itself quite clearly falls under the status of "war crimes" adopted by the Hague and Geneva Conventions. Yet the world remains inexplicably silent about it. More to the point, this policy of preventive war has made the U.S. into an outlaw or rogue state, or to use Noam Chomsky's latest term, a "failed" state, since it ignores all laws that apply to it while holding others to both international law and to its (the U.S.'s) own will. Finally, there is a question as to whether the Bush declaration of a "war on terror" is a violation of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which posits the power to declare war to the U.S. Congress.
Next, let us see who the proper international authority is to authorize military action short of immediate self-defense. According to Articles 39, 41 and 42 of the U.N. Charter, the U.N. Security Council the sole authority to determine if and when armed force is to be applied from one nation against another, and specifies what forms of force the U.N. might take (again with the sole exception of self-defense). To date, the U.N. Security Council has not authorized an attack on Iran. That they did not do so with Iraq either means, of course, that the U.S. is an outlaw state when it comes to Iraq, punishable by international law and sanction.
Third, there is an acknowledged body of international law called "jus cogens norms" (i.e. "compelling law"), also called "peremptory norms," adherence to is mandatory of all nations. Wars of aggression are among those activities condemned under jus cogens norms.
Furthermore, an attack on Iran (and all the more the one on Iraq) are direct violations of the U.S. sponsored Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928, Article I of which states that the contracting parties "condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another."
Fifth, an attack on Iran would fit the definition of "Crimes Against Peace" contained in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal from Nuremberg, on the basis of which prosecution of the Nazis took place. Article 6 of that Tribunal defines such crimes as the "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties."
Finally, the necessarily significant number of civilian casualties that would occur from the bombing of nuclear facilities located in population centers, and from having over 400 targets in the bombing, would entail a direct violation of the Nuremberg Charter, Article 6; U.N. Charter Articles 39; 41-43; 46, and Protocol I of Geneva Conventions, Articles 50-56. It also would violate Articles 3 and 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which state that everyone has a right to life, liberty, and security, and that no one shall be subjected to inhuman or degrading punishment.
IV. Consequences of Attempted Hegemony
The conceivable consequences of such U.S. aggression towards Iran include these very serious possibilities.
1. The Generals inside the Pentagon have stated forcefully that bombing Iran will probably not succeed in putting an end to its nuclear program. At the very least, the U.S. will have to occupy Iraq with ground troops to make sure the program stops.
2. Iran might retaliate to a selected bombing campaign by stopping tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
3. Iran could retaliate by directly interfering in the mess in Iraq, making the situation there much worse. Imagine 150,000 angry Iranians pouring across the border into Iraq, ready to retaliate against American troops for casualties inflicted on their home land.
4. If the U.S. strikes civilian structures as well as military and nuclear sites, it would almost certainly set up a long-term war with Iran and its allies.
5. Russia and China, who rely heavily on Iran for their oil, would not likely stand idly by while the U.S. moves into Iran. Both countries had massive contracts with Iraq before the U.S. invaded that country and negated those contracts. Now China alone has deals with Iran, one of which is a 25-year contract worth $100 billion. So we could be in for a protracted Cold War once again, if not the hot war of military action, with China and Russia.
6. Iran could attack the oil and gas fields in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.
7. Hezbollah will no doubt engage in renewed and intense targeting of American soldiers and civilians.
8. A true jihad would undoubtedly arise from the Muslim world, who would see the combined attacks on Iraq and Iran as attacks on the Muslim world in general. This would then become a very protracted and bloody war, spread worldwide.
9. Bush and Cheney's seriousness about use of nuclear weapons against Iranian targets invites a renewed nuclear arms race. Even the U.S. threat of using nuclear weapons decreases stability in the world and almost forces any government which feels threatened by the U.S. to gain access to nuclear weapons, including terrorists. This is not to submit that these things might not happen anyway; just that Bush actions accelerate the pace of a nuclear-armed world.
10. The consequences of a nuclear attack on Iran are grave, as we know from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
11. There is a distinct lack of military intelligence about Iran. In other words, the military does not know which targets to hit in Iran. No one knows where all the nuclear programs might exist. As a consequence, military planners have over 400 targets in mind for a military strike.
12. The citizens of the U.S., already deeply divided, would divide even more over an attack on Iran.
13. Without solid evidence of Iran's nuclear intentions, the U.S. would have to attack Iran virtually without ally, further alienating us from the world community. The Brits and the Europeans are positively against a military attack on Iran at this time.
14. According to many experts, one of the consequences of an attack on Iraq would be that oil prices would raise to around $100 a barrel, far above what they are now.
VI. The Ethical and Logical Need for Consistency
Another necessary condition for a military campaign requires that the action be predictably successful. As we will see when we line up the conceivable backfires of such an attack on Iranian installations, this condition would not be met by a U.S. bombing of Iran. Seymour Hersh examines in great detail the fact that the Pentagon brass is highly dubious that a strike on Iran would be at all successful. Beyond this, we can question whether a strike on Iran will be successful by examining the alleged reason Bush wants to bomb the country: its connection to terrorism. Even if it turns out to be true that Iran has provided some weapons to Hezbollah and/or the Iraqi resistance, this does not mandate a U.S. military strike on their nuclear facilities. The U.S. has recourse to the U.N. Security Council for its complaints, as it is mandated to do by international law. More importantly under this principle, though, it must be recognized that because terrorism is a process, not a country or concrete enemy, there is no infrastructure, no governmental apparatus, no army, no territory, and no concrete way of apprising whether or not success has been achieved. Thus, this condition alone negates the militarism of the Bush administration, launched as it is under the blanket term of "terrorism."
Finally, the ethical principles used to judge war require that civilians remain unharmed to the greatest degree possible, and that any harm that comes to them must not be in great numbers. The problem for the Bush regime is that some of Iran's most extensive nuclear production plants are in or near civilian centers, and the possibility of hitting them without concomitantly killing large numbers of civilians in the process is a minimal.
III. International Law
International law is quite clear about one country attacking another country unprovoked. Since international law derived from the ethical principles of war, examined above, we will scrutinize international law on war by attempting to stay close the categories we used in discussing the ethical principles concerning warfare.
First, one must look at the Charter of the United Nations, to which it is untiringly added that the U.S. is a signatory to and thus bound by it, as our Constitution requires (Article III, Section 2). The U.N. Charter very specifically states the international understanding of a "just cause" in Article 51. However, prior to that, the general rule of relations between nations is stated in Article 2: "All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state..." But it does recognize that there are times when the use of force becomes necessary. The sole exception to the presumption against military force in Article 2 is self-defense, contained in Article 51. This is largely recognized to include an imminent attack in addition to a real one. It need hardly be remarked here that Iran in no way poses such a threat to the United States. Even if it did, the U.S. has legal recourse to the U.N. Security Council, but no legal recourse to military attack. In addition, Article 33 of the Charter states that "parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice." That the Bush administration rejects this is clear from their doctrine of preventive war, contained in the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, and states that the U.S. now reserves the right to attack any nation they perceive as being potentially harmful to their interests. This policy, called "pre-emptive war" by the Bush administration, but "preventive war" by everyone else, in itself quite clearly falls under the status of "war crimes" adopted by the Hague and Geneva Conventions. Yet the world remains inexplicably silent about it. More to the point, this policy of preventive war has made the U.S. into an outlaw or rogue state, or to use Noam Chomsky's latest term, a "failed" state, since it ignores all laws that apply to it while holding others to both international law and to its (the U.S.'s) own will. Finally, there is a question as to whether the Bush declaration of a "war on terror" is a violation of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which posits the power to declare war to the U.S. Congress.
Next, let us see who the proper international authority is to authorize military action short of immediate self-defense. According to Articles 39, 41 and 42 of the U.N. Charter, the U.N. Security Council the sole authority to determine if and when armed force is to be applied from one nation against another, and specifies what forms of force the U.N. might take (again with the sole exception of self-defense). To date, the U.N. Security Council has not authorized an attack on Iran. That they did not do so with Iraq either means, of course, that the U.S. is an outlaw state when it comes to Iraq, punishable by international law and sanction.
Third, there is an acknowledged body of international law called "jus cogens norms" (i.e. "compelling law"), also called "peremptory norms," adherence to is mandatory of all nations. Wars of aggression are among those activities condemned under jus cogens norms.
Furthermore, an attack on Iran (and all the more the one on Iraq) are direct violations of the U.S. sponsored Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928, Article I of which states that the contracting parties "condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another."
Fifth, an attack on Iran would fit the definition of "Crimes Against Peace" contained in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal from Nuremberg, on the basis of which prosecution of the Nazis took place. Article 6 of that Tribunal defines such crimes as the "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties."
Finally, the necessarily significant number of civilian casualties that would occur from the bombing of nuclear facilities located in population centers, and from having over 400 targets in the bombing, would entail a direct violation of the Nuremberg Charter, Article 6; U.N. Charter Articles 39; 41-43; 46, and Protocol I of Geneva Conventions, Articles 50-56. It also would violate Articles 3 and 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which state that everyone has a right to life, liberty, and security, and that no one shall be subjected to inhuman or degrading punishment.
IV. Consequences of Attempted Hegemony
The conceivable consequences of such U.S. aggression towards Iran include these very serious possibilities.
1. The Generals inside the Pentagon have stated forcefully that bombing Iran will probably not succeed in putting an end to its nuclear program. At the very least, the U.S. will have to occupy Iraq with ground troops to make sure the program stops.
2. Iran might retaliate to a selected bombing campaign by stopping tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
3. Iran could retaliate by directly interfering in the mess in Iraq, making the situation there much worse. Imagine 150,000 angry Iranians pouring across the border into Iraq, ready to retaliate against American troops for casualties inflicted on their home land.
4. If the U.S. strikes civilian structures as well as military and nuclear sites, it would almost certainly set up a long-term war with Iran and its allies.
5. Russia and China, who rely heavily on Iran for their oil, would not likely stand idly by while the U.S. moves into Iran. Both countries had massive contracts with Iraq before the U.S. invaded that country and negated those contracts. Now China alone has deals with Iran, one of which is a 25-year contract worth $100 billion. So we could be in for a protracted Cold War once again, if not the hot war of military action, with China and Russia.
6. Iran could attack the oil and gas fields in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.
7. Hezbollah will no doubt engage in renewed and intense targeting of American soldiers and civilians.
8. A true jihad would undoubtedly arise from the Muslim world, who would see the combined attacks on Iraq and Iran as attacks on the Muslim world in general. This would then become a very protracted and bloody war, spread worldwide.
9. Bush and Cheney's seriousness about use of nuclear weapons against Iranian targets invites a renewed nuclear arms race. Even the U.S. threat of using nuclear weapons decreases stability in the world and almost forces any government which feels threatened by the U.S. to gain access to nuclear weapons, including terrorists. This is not to submit that these things might not happen anyway; just that Bush actions accelerate the pace of a nuclear-armed world.
10. The consequences of a nuclear attack on Iran are grave, as we know from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
11. There is a distinct lack of military intelligence about Iran. In other words, the military does not know which targets to hit in Iran. No one knows where all the nuclear programs might exist. As a consequence, military planners have over 400 targets in mind for a military strike.
12. The citizens of the U.S., already deeply divided, would divide even more over an attack on Iran.
13. Without solid evidence of Iran's nuclear intentions, the U.S. would have to attack Iran virtually without ally, further alienating us from the world community. The Brits and the Europeans are positively against a military attack on Iran at this time.
14. According to many experts, one of the consequences of an attack on Iraq would be that oil prices would raise to around $100 a barrel, far above what they are now.
VI. The Ethical and Logical Need for Consistency
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