The last principle of the Just War Doctrine that we will consider is #5:
- The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.
It is impossible to know exactly what President Obama’s intentions actually are. His stated objective is to punish President Assad with a single attack for the purpose of deterring the future use of chemical weapons. That objective is perfectly consistent with the Just War Doctrine. Note that that objective has nothing to do with stopping the humanitarian tragedy in Syria, but it is not necessary for all possible objectives to be satisfied. After all, one of the stated purposes of the Just War Doctrine is to limit the frequency and intensity of war, not necessarily to end all violence.
There are, however, reasons to doubt that this single objective is the only one. The same objective was stated in the intervention in Libya in March 2011, which was the reason why the Russians and Chinese did not veto the Security Council Resolution justifying the intervention. The purposes of that intervention, however, changed into one of regime change, i.e., the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, President Obama has not given any indication that his current plans include regime change, but he is on record as calling for President Assad to step down. Additionally, we know that there are many voices in the US Congress who are calling for the overthrow of President Assad. So, if the strike occurs, the objectives of the attack must remain completely limited to be covered by the Just War Doctrine.
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On one hand it sounds like a good idea to want to rid a country of its leader when said leader is committing horrific acts against its people. Using chemical weapons clearly qualifies as does lesser offenses. But when a leader is actually removed what happens after isn’t always what was expected. Iraq being a really good example of the chaos in the aftermath.
If diplomacy fails and a strike occurs I think the temptation to go further and unseat Assad will be great but that it should be resisted. Before we get involved in yet another regime change scenario those in charge need to think long and hard about if it’s our place and have a much more defined plan because we can’t continue to be occupiers in other countries.
As to principle #5 if getting involved resulted in Assad seeing the light and changing his ways or stepping down (or otherwise be removed from office) and a legitimate government with the best interests of all Syrian people looked after it would qualify as a peace preferable to the peace that would be in place had conflict never started. However, it’s not likely that any government that would rise up from the opposition would be inclusive or democratic in the way the U.S. would like to see and it’s never really easy to change a country’s leadership by the use of foreign force. I’m not getting a clear feeling on if this principle is at play here.
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I agree that the temptation to get involved in regime change may too powerful to resist even though it is a very dangerous objective. Under the current circumstances, any intervention would have consequences impossible to predict.
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