Legitimacy and America’s Pursuance of the War in Iraq

Legitimacy and America’s pursuance of the War in Iraq

Proc 5840 Negotiations

University

On February 5th 2003, Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, addressed the United Nations (UN) Security Council to illustrate the urgency to employ military forces against Iraq for their failure to cooperate with UN inspectors.  Colin Powell contended that Iraq had continually violated sanctions placed upon them and had not met its obligation to a number of previous UN backed resolutions.  Specifically, the United States (US) felt that Resolution 1441 which called for the immediate disarmament of Iraq, had been consistently ignored and that the language in Resolution 1441 stated that the use of "all means necessary" was still on the table as a viable option.  Therefore, the US maintained that if Iraq failed to meet the terms with the "one final chance to comply" provision of Resolution 1441, then military action would be the end result.  Though Colin Powell failed to negotiate a change in the position of the UN Security Council, which included France, Russia, China, and Germany, Powell succeeded in legitimizing the overall tone of the United States towards Iraq.  This would prove to one of few legitimacies in the US effort to enlist support for an invasion of Iraq.  Lacking to secure UN Security Council authorization, US-led coalition forces ultimately invaded Iraq in March 2003 with the initial objective of locating and disarming suspected Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

 The events leading up to the US-led invasion can be accurately portrayed as “a contest over legitimacy” (Fawn, 2006, p. 15), Could the UN wield its influence? Would the Bush administration make good on their pressures?  With widespread assertions that the invasion had also produced a “crisis of legitimacy” for the UN Security Council and the Bush Administration itself, this period in our history provides us with an interesting case to examine, how external standards of legitimacy set forth by the UN along with the sentiments of the international community failed to fully constrain the United States in its effort to expose Iraq for weapons of mass destruction.  It is also essential to see that in retrospect, the deviation from external standards of legitimacy can prove to be a costly endeavor.

 While the United States’ exerts overwhelming influence throughout the world, it was inhibited by the UN Security Council and established legitimate standards.  These standards prodded the US in particular directions as they would refine its stance against Iraq in an effort to gain support, legitimizing the moral effort of ‘regime change’, to justify its actions.  This paper will examine the impact of legitimacy regarding the US’ decision to bypass the UN Security Council and seek the backing of a ‘democratic coalition of the willing’ for the invasion of Iraq.  This essay will discuss that, while the existence of legitimate policies did not ultimately force the US from invading Iraq, US failure to secure legitimacy within the UN Security Council for its actions, imposed a significant cost to US relationships abroad.

Legitimacy is developed through “regulations or a rule-making institution which exerts a influence towards compliance on those addressed” (Franck, 1990, p. 16) it is not an absolute constraint on people or countries and this is particularly true during the days and months leading up to the Iraq War.  The Bush Administration strayed from legitimate, socially recognized international rules in pursuit of its security interests in Iraq (Franck, 1990, p. 50-52).  Through its unilateral use of force without UN Security Council authorization and claims of self-defense, the US demonstrated that it was not bound by these legitimate standards of the UN (Franck, 1990, p. 16).  The US’ tactics to secure validity for a war with Iraq was considered to be unlawful, with both the UN Security Council and the international community. 

America stated that it would “not hesitate to act alone” to protect its security interests (White House, 2002, p. 6), yet the Bush administration sought to take its case for the invasion of Iraq to the UN Security Council, ready to suffer set-backs with regard to time, policy compromise and payments in attempting to negotiate and secure UN Security Council authorization for its military action.  Though the administration did not feel that UN Security Council authorization was absolutely essential prior to using international force (Hurd, 2008, p. 124-125). This is evident as the US eventually circumvented the UN Security Council, combined with the opinion within the Bush Administration that the UN Security Council could be sidestepped on the basis of legitimization at home.  As US Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton (Bolton, 2003: 1) put it, “our actions, taken consistently with Constitutional principles, require no separate, external validation to make them legitimate”.  The US still behaved as if the international legitimacy of UN Security Council approval for its use of force was important.  The US knew other countries accepted that the UN Security Council was the only body that could “provide the unique legitimacy that one needs to act over Iraq” (Annan, 2002: 1) and it understood that a lack of UN Security Council authorization for its invasion would eventually create social costs, including a potential loss of its own legitimacy, since other countries complied with the Security Council’s authority. 

In the absence of UN Security Council authorization for the use of force, the Bush Administration developed a strategy of justification through action and statements, in an attempt to display the enforcement of past UN Security Council Resolutions. US Secretary of State Colin Powell (Powell, 2003: 1) stating that “this war is being conducted under the authority of UN Resolution 1441 and earlier Resolutions” and as such was “a war that is being conducted with international authority”. This course of action involved a high degree of creative interpretation of prior resolutions since they did not technically authorize the use of force, despite calling for Iraq’s disarmament.  

The Bush Administration was aware that there existed a legitimacy throughout the international community and that the use of military force depended on authorization by UN Security Council Resolutions.  While the Bush Administration may not have deemed this applicable, it knew other countries did, and that it risked incurring social costs if it proceeded without employing a legitimate strategy of justification and so it sought to legitimize a regime change, associating its actions with moral, humanitarian considerations. Specifically, promoting the idea that overthrowing Saddam Hussein and imposing a democratic regime in Iraq was legitimate because, in President Bush’s (2003: 1) words, “bringing stability and unity to a free Iraq” would liberate Iraqis from “the nightmare world that Saddam Hussein has chosen for them”.  President Bush stressed in the months leading up to the invasion, branded Operation Iraqi Freedom, that, while Iraqi disarmament was the focus, “liberty for the Iraqi people” was also “a great moral cause” (Bush, 2002: 1).

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