Sorry, I believe you are on very tenuous grounds here. The primary reason for the US attacking Iraq cannot be for failure to disarm through a certified UN method unless the US is acting on the part of the UN. In other words, the US cannot on the one hand claim that we are invading Iraq for breaking a UN resolution, and then on the other hand attack unilaterally without the UN.
"The U.S. did not act to uphold a particular U.N. resolution. It acted to uphold the principles the resolution was supposed to protect"
Ok, so the US acted unilaterally without regard to the UN resolution. This is where the dangerous ground lies. Let's speculate that Iraq disarmed, but being the losers they are, still wanted to string people along. That would mean that we invaded them not because they had WMD, but because they won't destroy them in front of our eyes. A VERY flimsy reason for invasion, in the eyes of the world. That is why finding the WMD is so important; because the reason for invading cannot be to enforce the principle of inspection without UN sanction.
Where we disagree the most is in the role of the UN. If not the UN as it stands, there MUST be an international body of justice. With the world shifting from bipolar to monopolar, there MUST be checks and balances to the power of the US. It is too easy for us to slip from benevolent 'police' to belligerent bully without some method of review and constraint that is framed in the context of international good.
If your argument is that the UN as it stands today is not that body, then I cannot argue too much with that. We need to figure out some method for dealing with international security issues, without having to build a new coalition each time such a crisis arises.
"So the U.S. did it. We were entirely correct in doing so because the apparent threat and the implication to America it presented was just too great to be ignored. You are being wondrously short-sighted, my friend."
Well, the man that shoots his neighbor who he thinks is posing a threat, but turns out not to have a gun, will still go to jail. You need that threat to be proven in order to get off. That is what I'm saying; not that the invasion was wrong, but that the proof is necessary, both internationally and nationally. Internationally as proof that we are not imperialistic bullies. Nationally to assure ourselves that we are not deluding ourselves, or being 'wondrously short sighted'. |
