As the military campaign continues in Iraq, the University brought out four leading scholars to discuss a variety of issues associated with the war, including its legitimacy, the failure of multilateralism and the costs of the campaign.
The participants of the panel, moderated by Provost Peter Lange, presented a myriad of opinions concerning the Bush administration's policy on Iraq to an auditorium overflowing with an audience of more than 400 people.
Romand Coles, associate professor of political science, described what he called the administration's attack on the democratic process, beginning with a reference to the veiling of the 1937 Pablo Picasso painting, Guernica, during a speech Secretary of State Colin Powell gave to the United Nations.
Arguing that "good democratic judgment depends on remembering such violence," Coles was the panel's strongest critic of the war. He repeatedly attacked the Bush administration, citing numerous examples of its weak defense of its own policy, such as the administration's use of photographs of an Iraqi facility as proof of their deception, even after U.N. inspectors refuted the claim that the facility was being used to produce weapons of mass destruction.
"What remains central is a dogmatic insistence that the U.S. unilaterally defines justice and will listen to no one. But where did we ever earn this right?" asked Coles, noting that the U.S. government funded terrorists in Afghanistan several decades ago.
Critiquing the war in a different manner, Director of the Sanford Institute of Public Policy Bruce Jentleson summed up his beliefs in four words: "right threat, wrong strategy." Recognizing a threat posed by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Jentleson said, "The world had an opportunity for a win-win situation. When the resolution passed the U.N. Security Council last November, it was the perfect opportunity to bring together U.N. legitimacy and American power."
He also acknowledged that there are situations where force should not be a last resort, adding, "Legitimacy matters.... It bears upon the power and influence and leadership that you can exercise in the world."
Robert Keohane, James B. Duke professor of political science, distinguished between the legality and legitimacy of the war.
"The war is on balance illegal because it was not authorized by the Security Council," he argued, adding the war's legitimacy will be enhanced if the United States immediately turns over the administration of a post-Saddam Iraq to the United Nations.
Keohane also said the threat of unilateral force by the United States was necessary to get the United Nations in motion, but described the lack of a multilateral strategy as a "disastrous failure" for the United Nations.
He added, "More dangerous than these failures and war itself is the policy the Bush administration has proposed - "one of unilateral preventative war."
Keohane also described the risks of the war as extremely high, including a recruitment benefit for al Qaeda that could generate increased hostility toward the U.S. and disruption in the institutions, like the United Nations, that have helped create order for 50 years.
The sole member of the panel to speak in favor of war was Associate Professor of Political Science Peter Feaver, who called his argument "a reluctant case for war."
Disagreeing with Keohane, Feaver said, "We have to be honest about how we got here. The U.N. did fail. It failed catastrophically on Iraq... not last week, but by 1999."
Feaver said President George W. Bush unilaterally revived the United Nations and made it relevant to Iraq by credibly threatening to use force outside the United Nations. Once France made clear it would block any resolution to hold Saddam accountable, he said, the best option left for the United States was to carry out its threat of force, as the U.N. strategy was no longer viable.
Feaver said a dominant media characterization of Bush as the arrogant cowboy and France as the defender of the rule of law was actually "a clash of interests... over risk management."
He indicated that, whereas France faced a higher short-term cost and therefore a higher risk, the U.S.'s long-term cost was much lower if military action was conducted now.
Lange called the panel "a great success" and added, "The best thing that could happen for this panel is not that 400 to 500 people heard it, but that they would go out and talk to others."
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