wfn.org | ACNS3382 Weaknesses and moral inconsistency led us to war

["Anglican Communion News Service" <acnslist@anglicancommunion.org>]

ACNS 3382     |     ENGLAND	|     28 MARCH 2003 

Weaknesses and moral inconsistency led us to war

Archbishop of Canterbury article on Iraq, as published in The Times on
Tuesday 25 March 2003:

The decision to embark on military operations in Iraq last week produced
something unfamiliar in our politics: the sense of the genuinely tragic - by
which I mean not the sad or the catastrophic, but the awareness of
desperately constrained choices, profound moral risk, the knowledge of the
cost of what we do, even when we do it from conviction.

Few people have felt that the decisions taken were easy or cheap. Which is
why, even for critics of military intervention, just rehearsing the earlier
arguments feels futile and distasteful; the weight of the cost lies most
heavily on people other than preachers and commentators - the Armed Forces,
the decision-makers, the people of Iraq and the region. The acute moral
question now is what can carry us forward. Or, more sharply put, what can
mend all the things this war and the processes leading up to it have broken?

We have to think not only about the commitment to protect civilian lives -
vital, and often challenging, though it is. We must also think about
strategic decisions on infrastructure. It is right to press the importance -
especially in a context already as ravaged as Iraq - of strategies that seek
to limit further damage to communications, water supplies, all that makes
routine and emergency medical care possible. Here, we are potentially in the
realm of the tragic again, since dilemmas arise when a strategy offers the
promise of a speedier end to hostilities at the price of humanitarian
casualties; we can only say that the moral preference must be for whatever
least injures the possibilities of reconstruction.

In the longer run, we urgently need clarity about the international ownership
of any political solution for Iraq, including clear commitments pointing away
from 'imperial' structures; we need to have road-maps not only for the future
of the Holy Land but for the region overall, for its countless minorities; a
clear sense of those strategies which will deliver a new energy for civil
society, rooted in local loyalties and interests.

These issues cannot be put on the back burner while hostilities go forward.
We must not be caught naked of ideas and clear commitments when a cease-fire
arrives. And we should already be rebuilding those broken or threatened bonds
of trust with allies not involved in military action so as to draw them into
fruitful collaboration in this process.

But the moral question about both international and local ownership of
long-term solutions already begins to raise issues about what has so far been
the greatest casualty away from the arena of war - a coherent approach to
international law and to the maintenance of alliances. The US and British
Governments have defended an interpretation of particular UN resolutions that
has not been accepted by others; they are understandably sceptical of the
idea that interpretation can be settled by the chances of a majority vote;
but what then is the means of authoritative interpretation? And how are we to
understand the obligations of alliances where there is insoluble dispute on
finding an authoritative reading of decisions meant to bind all partners?

We have seen a situation develop where the alternatives were increasingly
presented as polar opposites: open warfare or open-ended negotiation. What we
seemed to lack was a compelling strategy for containing or disarming Iraq
that did not involve direct military intervention. Shortly before the Azores
summit, a plan appeared from American church groups, which began to address
these concerns; but how was it that no persuasive alternative had been
explored earlier? Those in the international community most critical of war
might have been expected to offer something beyond open-ended inspections
(let alone sanctions).

So it is not enough to have been critical of the way war with Iraq came
about. We need urgently to develop better methods of working together. Too
often, the Security Council seems to be incapable of functioning as more than
the sorry sum of its frequently disparate parts. Would we be helped, for
example, by a standing body, more broadly drawn, and charged with formulating
and clarifying options for dealing with such crises? Could we imagine such a
group taking in NGOs as well as diplomatic representation, so that issues
about humanitarian relief and social reconstruction could be fully factored
in to the main discussion?

Clearly, we have to give urgent attention to the credibility of international
institutions; and this includes some hard questions for those who have been
reluctant to endorse certain international juridical bodies. A clear
indictment of the Iraqi regime for crimes against humanity would not
necessarily have avoided war, but it would have bolstered the case for any
action, military or otherwise, against that regime.

Much is made of the dangers of terror sponsored by 'rogue states' - and it is
a reasonable anxiety. In such an environment - though the terror itself is
clearly repugnant and morally indefensible - the need for a clearly and
commonly owned legitimation for action is greater not less.

The strength of the disagreement over the processes leading up to the
decision to commit troops to action cannot be undone, but lessons can and
must be learnt from it. We need a shared recognition of the confusions and
failures on all sides - a shared repentance, to use the language of Lent -
some way to help gather us anew (and not just about Iraq) after the war.

We have to pray that the risks consciously undertaken will be less costly
than some still fear; that relatively swift progress towards a settlement
will follow. We must get on with addressing some of the underlying weaknesses
and moral inconsistencies that have led us to a situation where our leaders
have concluded that we have no alternative to war. We must not easily travel
that road again.

___________________________________________________________________

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