Week 4: The 'War on Terror'

The 'War on Terror' was a striking example of how significant counter-terrorism could be in defining government policy. The threat posed by terrorism, and the involvement of the US armed forces in fighting it, did not change dramatically when George W. Bush left office. His successor Barack Obama has generally avoided referring to a 'War on Terror', however, suggesting that this particular War is a political operation as much as - or more than - a military one.

Although there have been military operations in several different parts of the world, the 'War on Terror' label was applied primarily to US and British operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The counter-terrorist justification for the invasion of Iraq was always weak; it amounted to an additional reason why Saddam Hussein should not be permitted to develop weapons of mass destruction, i.e. in case they became even more dangerous by falling into the hands of terrorists. When the US/British invasion had established that Saddam Hussein's arsenal of chemical and biological weapons had indeed been destroyed (confirming the UN inspection team's reports), it was argued instead that the invasion gave Britain the opportunity to defeat jihadists in Iraq instead of waiting for them to come to Britain. Whether the people of Iraq would think this was a good arrangement is another question.

The rationale for invading Afghanistan was a lot more straightforward: the Taliban were in power and they were harbouring Osama bin Laden, so the only way to get bin Laden was to overthrow the Taliban and set up a new, more legitimate government instead. There was no possibility of negotiating with the Taliban - say, for example, getting them to hand bin Laden over - because this would mean, well, negotiating with the Taliban. It's certainly true that leaving the Taliban in power would have had very bad results, and that the degree of democracy and political freedom the Afghan people currently enjoy is a big improvement on the situation in 2001. Whether the democratic and egalitarian reforms brought about by the occupying forces are permanent - whether the Taliban's exclusion from power is permanent, even - is another question. A decade-long war which has killed 3,000 US and allied troops and somewhere around 20,000 Afghan civilians may turn out not to have been the best way to flush out bin Laden or to encourage reform in the Afghan government.

It may also turn out to have been illegal. In international law, it is hard to justify a war of invasion, particularly one which - like the invasion of Iraq - was explicitly embarked on to achieve political goals (the disarmament and/or removal from power of Saddam Hussein). There are provisions in international law for a legal invasion, some long-established (the "Caroline" argument justifying anticipatory self-defence, which dates back to 1837) and some more recent (the doctrine of "responsibility to protect" or R2P, formulated in 2005). It is not impossible to make arguments like these cover Afghanistan or Iraq, but it is very difficult. There were also UN resolutions calling on Iraq to disarm; however, most people did not see those resolutions as justifying war, let alone a war carried out by a self-selected alliance of nations without UN approval. The legality of the two wars - in terms of whether it was legal to declare war (ius ad bellum) - is highly suspect. And, as we know, the legality of the wars in terms of how they have been conducted (ius in bello) is also very questionable; at best, the wars have been scarred by numerous war crimes, from Abu Ghraib to the most recent drone strikes. At worst, the aggressor nations have been guilty of state crimes, and even terrorism.