THE MORALITY OF THE PERSIAN GULF WAR: POLITICAL REALITIES AND LEGAL INTERPRETATIONS

Abstract

The January 1991 Persian Gulf War and U.S.‐led coalition's resort to overt military conflict against Iraq fueled the debate on the utility and relevance of the just war tradition. Assessing realities surrounding the war's circumstances, we show that a) some criteria of just war theory (jus ad bellum) cannot be easily or fully satisfied, b) new political realities and multinational strategic interests can be incorporated within just war doctrine without depriving the latter of its perennial norms, and c) although U.N. involvement was critical to satisfy the legitimate authority requirement of just war doctrine, sovereign states acted largely independently of U.N. supervision. Our analysis questions some of the moral and practical uncertainties of the just war tradition and encourages ways to reconcile this rich tradition with new political and legal realities.