A US invasion of Iraq to depose President Saddam Hussein cannot be justified under the moral and philosophical theories that underpin the concept of "just war," according to scholars of war ethics.
"How can we announce a [new] doctrine of preemption as central to foreign policy by insisting that it applies to the United States alone, and insisting that it should not become and must not become the centerpiece of foreign policy practices elsewhere on earth?" asked William A. Galston, a political theorist and director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland.
The belief that war can be morally acceptable and at times morally necessary is central to "just war" theory, and underlies UN doctrine and international law regarding military conflict. The philosophy has roots in secular and Christian, Muslim and Jewish scholarship.
According to Galston – who supported the coalition against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War - the current US government has failed to make a morally sound case for attacking Iraq this time.
He said the administration's declaration that the goal for war on Iraq is regime change goes against traditional moral justifications for military action.
Michael Walzer, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University and a scholar on morality and the use of force, cited Guatemala, Chile and elsewhere during the Cold War as representative of cases where the United States spearheaded regime change with questionable moral results, supporting brutal regimes that served its political and foreign policy needs.