Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal
by Peter N. Kirstein

This was not a war of last resort, with just cause, with right intentions or with proportionality that are requirements of Just War Doctrine. This was an elective war to project American geostrategic dominance in the Persian Gulf, to encircle Iran, to control Iraqi oil and to reestablish western colonialism in Iraq. The British colonized Iraq under a League of Nations mandate following the demise of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, but withdrew its forces in 1927 due to its failure to overcome a sectarian insurgency.

The US must never preemptively invade a nation that is not an imminent threat. John Quincy Adams, one of America’s greatest secretaries of state, warned about going “abroad, in search of monsters to destroy” particularly if the monster is more bluster than bite. Saddam Hussein did not possess chemical, biological or, unlike Israel, nuclear weapons. After no weapons of mass destruction were found the war aim shifted to spreading liberty and democracy: a convenient ruse to convert a crime into an alleged crusade for democracy over autocracy.



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