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Seeking Peace, Seeking Justice: Iran and Syria

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The moral questions suggested by Syria and Iran are quite different in my view, and for that reason the moral considerations in each case are also different.    

While the Iranian situation may be the more dangerous of the two, it is the more familiar.  Using just war teaching, which is the tradition of theorizing about war found in the Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed churches, we could certainly make a case that self-defense, a prima facie just cause in just war theory, provides appropriate grounds for military action, particularly because of the nuclear danger, but also because of Iran’s demonstrated support for international terrorist organizations.  Note that a successful case will require a clear demonstration not only of Iran’s nuclear intentions but also of its ability to succeed in these ambitions.  In other words, just war theory requires more than a recognition that a regime or leader is evil; we need also to know that this evil poses a threat to international order.

Just cause, however, is not the only criterion that a military response must satisfy.  In this case, we might be especially interested in proportionality of ends (the good achieved by the use of the force must be greater than the harms done), reasonable hope of success, and last resort.  My own view is that the case for military action in Iran fails all three of these tests. In particular, I find it hard to conclude that a well-designed sanctions regime tied to rigorous international inspections will not be able to yield results. And when compared with the long-term negative consequences and the inherent difficulty of pursuing the military option in Iran, a stronger sanctions/inspection approach looks far more likely to move us towards improved relations in the region. 

In contrast, the situation in Syria is more difficult, albeit less dangerous for international order. The difficulty stems from the fact that our moral reflections with regard to armed humanitarian interventions into states are considerably less well developed than our reflections on war between states.  Since 1648 (the Peace of Westphalia), international norms of state sovereignty and non-intervention have persisted more or less without interruption, until very recently.  It’s not obvious how just war theory could be understood to apply to cases like Syria (or other recent cases, such as Libya) without considerable revision of the theory itself. 

What are some of the moral differences?  Well, it’s complicated.  Can just cause, for instance, be understood to include the punishment of evil such as we see in Syria today?  International law permits no such understanding: self-defense and collective security are the only just causes for war under international law.  What are the risks of broadening this justification?  Right intention is another just war criterion—the intent in a particular action must be in accord with the just cause and not for another cause.  Most armed interventions are not humanitarian—how are we to establish right motives in humanitarian interventions?  How are we even going to measure them?  So my first impulse with regard to the Syrian case is to appeal for more good theoretical work to be done on the matter of just humanitarian action.

Of course, my appeal for more theory will do little for policy-makers who must make decisions at a speed that makes theorists tremble.  And it particularly does nothing for those most affected : the Syrian people themselves.  So again I begin with just war theory.  Here, I’m particularly concerned about the prospects for success—the Syrian military poses a far greater challenge than was faced in Libya, for example.  Whether the good of the end is proportional to the harm that will result is also unclear, in my view.  I fully recognize my limitations in making those judgments.  But these criteria suggest to me that military intervention in Syria would be unwise.

On the question of expanding just cause to include the punishment of evils taking place entirely within states, the criterion of right authority may provide guidance.  The United Nation’s role as the institution capable of determining violations of collective security (its “Chapter 7” powers) may provide grounds for asserting its place as the “right authority” for justifying military intervention on humanitarian grounds.  I wonder also whether the UN might provide prudential checks against violation of other just war criteria as we consider intervention.  That might help resolve some of the concerns I noted above as we consider this revision of just war theory.

A final, and more personal, note.  I’m writing on Good Friday (yes, I’m late—apologies all around).  To think about state massacres, nuclear weapons and international terrorism on such a day as today is a reminder that Christianity is more than a theory or political commentary.  Christianity has at its center the story of man brutally tortured and killed by powers interested in maintaining their own power against a man challenging their authority.  The wonder, of course, is that in his defeat of those powers three days later, Jesus proclaimed the coming of a Kingdom based not on violence and war, but on something far more powerful.  

Just war theory is often said to have a bias for peace, and indeed this is so: it was designed to place limits on the ways that armies kill each other. (In fact, its seventh criterion is that a just war must aim at peace). But peace is not its only bias. The victory over death signifies a victory over oppression and violence and injustice.  Just war theory also contains a bias for justice: if we can act against injustice, we must act.  For it’s in the coming together of peace and justice that we discover the foundations of Christ’s new Kingdom.

The Cost of War

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One year after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s April 2011 crack down on civilian protests against his regime’s torture of students who had put up anti-government graffiti, the U.S. and the world are still figuring out what to do about it.

March 21 2012, the United Nations (UN) Security Council announced that it backed a six-point peace plan put forward by former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan. By March 27, Annan reported that al-Assad had accepted the cease-fire plan that will take effect April 10, 2012. But even as al-Assad met with Annan, reports of escalated crackdowns surfaced. Then on April 3 reports of military escalation in four major urban centers dashed hopes that al-Assad’s April 10 military withdrawal will actually take place.

And so the world waits for Tuesday, April 10. Then it will know what legitimate courses of action may come next. If al-Assad abides by the peace plan, then the world can exhale and allow peace to have its process. If not, then multiple questions step to the fore:  Will NATO intervene with military force or will the multi-lateral organization simply continue to supply the opposition forces with military supplies? Will the UN Security Council be able to overcome Russia and China’s entrenched economic ties to and military support of Syria? Will the U.S. engage in unilateral military intervention as Senator John McCain pressed for in his March 5, 2012 Senate speech?

These are questions of international law and diplomacy, but they are fundamentally moral and spiritual questions as well.

As I consider the options I am haunted by two separate conflicts, America’s choices for engagement, and the tolls those decisions took on millions of human lives.

We sat around a simple table, in a simple room, in a small Croatian town none of us had ever heard of. It was the summer of 2004.

On this day, in the first week of a one month pilgrimage through Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia, our evangelical delegation was hosted by the town council of Tenja (pronounced “Ten-ya”). A small agrarian town, Tenja is situated about 20 miles west of the Croatian/Serbian border. Shortly after Croatia declared its independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1990 Tenja was among the first Croatian towns to experience the wrath of former Yugoslavian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. This border town, which had previously enjoyed peaceful relations between Croats and Serbs quickly divided down ethnic lines. Croats fought for Croatia’s independence, while their Serb neighbors joined Milosevic’s Serbian army. What ensued was one year of brutal, unbridled ethnic conflict that targeted soldiers and civilians alike, engaged a program of systematic mass rape and destruction, and left in its wake landmines planted throughout Tenja’s farm fields to this day.

The town mayor and council members explained to our delegation how each was personally affected by the conflict that claimed more than 12,000 dead and missing Croatians in one year. They explained how they waited for someone—anyone—on the international stage to intervene and save them from a conflict we now know was the beginning of what would become the most deadly conflict in Europe since World War II. No one intervened—not NATO, not the UN Security Council—no one. The mayor of Tenja explained how he had hoped the United States would intervene, but we did not. And so, by January 1992 most of the residents of Tenja had lost fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, and neighbors.

The conflict ended when the international community finally did intervene in January 1992. After 15 attempts in six months, a UN sponsored cease-fire agreement finally worked. The European community finally recognized Croatia as a legitimate nation-state. And the UN Security Council finally adopted Resolution 743, which established the United Nations Protections Force (UNPROFOR) in the region to lay the groundwork for a peaceful political settlement between Croatia and Serbia.

I am haunted by Tenja.

I am also haunted by the memory of a more recent American intervention.

10:15pm on March 20, 2003 President George W. Bush addressed the nation to announce that 45 minutes before, he had ordered the beginning of air strikes within Iraq’s borders and the beginning of the second Iraq war, a conflict our military dubbed “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

International legal scholars have argued for and against the legality and legitimacy of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Most notably, the July 2003 exchange between John Yoo, who argued in favor of the war, and Thomas M. Franck, who argued against the war, in the American Journal of International Law, Volume 97, Agora: Future Implication of the Iraq Conflict.

Yoo argued that the war was legal because it was waged within the same legal framework that covered the U.S. during the first Iraq War, customary law justified intervention without UN approval, and U.S. belief that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) justified pre-emptive action.

Franck argued that UN Charter article 2(4) prohibits any state from taking first strike against another state without the express consent of the UN Security Council, except in cases where there is a direct, imminent threat against the state. The UN Security Council did not consent to America’s invasion of Iraq and WMDs were never found. Diplomatic means were not exhausted before the declaration of war. There was no direct threat to the U.S. or our interests in Iraq, thus our 9 year Iraq War was in violation of international law.

I agree with Franck. The war in Iraq was illegal, but this is not what haunts me most.

What haunts me most are the numbers mounted by this illegal conflict and the faces and lives they represent:

In America, it is a solemn event when even one soldier comes home in a body bag. Imagine the weight of grief and the enormous sense of loss the Iraqis must feel—110,600 civilian souls snuffed.

Now imagine how we could have used that $800 billion. Perhaps we could have used it to build more or better schools. Perhaps we could have used it to improve America’s health care system. Perhaps we could have used it to invest in job development and education that helps America’s poor rise into the working class. Perhaps… if only…

Perhaps the most regrettable thought is that, in the name of “freedom,” our illegal war served to constrict, destroy, and eliminate hundreds of thousands of images of God on earth.

The lessons I take from both Croatia and Iraq are these:

  1. Any action the U.S. takes to intervene in conflict waged within another nation-state’s borders must be with the express consent of the U.N. Security Council.
  2. Any action the U.S. takes to intervene in conflict waged within another nation-state’s borders must NOT be made with unilateral action. Multi-lateral action that utilizes the strength of institutions such as NATO, the Arab League, and the UN Security Council must utilized.
  3. Military action is always a last resort. Every possible means of diplomatic action must be taken before the threat of war is uttered.

War is not a slogan or a talking point. It is a mechanism of last resort within an international legal system that the United States helped to create. War always kills. It always destroys. It always diminishes capacity. It cannot build it. Ultimately, war threatens the image of God on earth. Thus talk of military intervention in Syria’s conflict must come only after all three conditions mentioned above are met. Then, perhaps it could be worth the cost.