“Death creates an economy that makes life precious. One of the ways of naming that preciousness is friendship.”
Stanley Hauerwas

Just war and just peace: trying to be just

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ii. Intention

We need to distinguish here between the intentions of a military operation, and the motives of those involved. If you are a Christian, you believe that the motives of the human heart are unsearchable and wicked. ‘The intention of man's heart is evil from his youth’, the Lord told Noah (Gen 8:21). We won't be able to pursue justness in war based on human motivations.

But intention is different. It refers to the plans of the military to right the wrong which occasioned the war. It should be clearly expressed. To his credit, President Bush has done this: he said that the intention of this war was to disarm Saddam Hussein and liberate Iraq for its people. The first of these goals seems clear; the second, I suggest, is where things have become more complicated. Will American occupation eventually liberate the people of Iraq? So far, it doesn’t look promising.

 But let’s return to a place where motives and intentions might overlap: How much of US foreign policy is theologically driven? I ask this as a genuine question, for I really don't know the answer. We know the importance President Bush places on prayer; we know he claims a personal relationship with Jesus; we know he reads the Bible.

Is it fair to expect that his decision-making regarding the Middle East is powerfully influenced by a premillennial dispensationalist eschatology?

To unpack that just a little for those who are not familiar with the terms: do we have grounds to believe that somewhere behind US foreign policy is a view that Jerusalem needs to be recovered for the true Israel, and that the Book of Revelation prophesies the judgement of Arab nations? (For more on this see Mike Thompson’s article on Christianity and U.S. Foreign Policy in Historical Perspective.)
  We won't be able to pursue justness in war based on human motivations  
 

I ask these questions so that someone here will pursue them and find answers, because if it is the case we can throw Just War theory (at least, the ius ad bellum, justness of war aspects) out the window. If a particular way of reading biblical prophecy and the Book of Revelation is behind US foreign policy on the Middle East, then this is indeed a religious war of enormous proportions.

But I don't know this. It needs to be examined.

iii. Last resort

The obvious aim of this restriction is to prevent the rush to war out of expediency or bloodlust. It means that nonviolent means of pursuing justice must first be exhausted before war is even considered. It prioritised war last on the list of ways of dealing with an offender. It resonates with God's character--patient, merciful, tolerating wrongdoing for as long as possible.

However, there is some confusion over this requirement. How do you determine when the 'now or never' moment has come? There was obvious disagreement at the UN over whether the moment had come for Iraq. In fact, last resort language can be used to enforce a war, by setting up conditions on the suspect party that must be met by a certain time. There may have been elements of such a dynamic at play in the lead up to war in Iraq.

iv. Legitimate high authority

This question restrains revolutionary groups and vigilantes--but I have a problem with it. If a high authority is acting unjustly, it would seem to me that it ought to be ignored. Isn't this the Bible's teaching: authorities are instituted to do good and punish wrong? What do we do when the authority itself is corrupt? I think Jesus offers the way forward, by teaching, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's’ (Mark 12:14). Where an authority is acting within its God-given place to bring about order and peace and present justice, we are to be in line with it. Where it is stealing from God, we may oppose it and end up in prison or worse.

We saw problems with this question of legitimate authority in the debates of the UN over Iraq. Was the authority of the UN respected by the US? Did the US reconstitute that authority by appealing to the 'Coalition of the Willing'? Was this a case of the highest authority in fact being the most powerful and coercive nation? Legal authority is a fragile phenomena and the UN has always been a very fragile expression of it. It seems that we are witnessing some kind of re-development of an authority based on nationhood and alliance, with the US in control. In fact, we seem to be seeing an act of empire—as ex-President Jimmy Carter put it, an attempt to establish 'Pax Americana' in Iraq and the Middle East.

The higher authority question did not help to resolve the issue of whether invading Iraq was just.

v. Reasonable hope of success

Even Jesus recognised that a sensible general counts the cost before going to war (Luke 14:31). Count the cost, he says, using a military metaphor for Christian discipleship. It is a check against overly optimistic and eager rulers who will wage war without a business plan, without a sense of how it could be won. If the obstacles to a campaign are unlikely to be surmounted, there is no justice in starting it.

It also needs to have some degree of certainty that the war will bring about something better than is now the case. These are very difficult things to assess: it would seem fair to suggest that Iraqis can be better off in a democracy than under a cruel dictator. But has US occupation of Iraq lead to stability in the region, or merely caused mass destruction and loss of life while providing grist to the mill of anti-US sentiment, and thus potential for further conflict?


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