When French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau famously commented that "war is too serious to leave to the military", he got it half right. It is also too serious to leave to the politicians. People accustomed to thinking at some depth about the moral aspects of human conduct also have a part to play.
In 2003 they tried. Churches in the United States and elsewhere urged restraint on the politicians and generals contemplating an attack on Iraq.
President George W. Bush ignored them. He launched an invasion, and six weeks later proclaimed "mission accomplished".
Seven years of deadly insurgency later, his successor, Barack Obama, announced last week the end of US combat operations, while leaving 50,000 troops to assist the Iraqi police and army.
Sure, the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein has been toppled. But Operation Iraqi Freedom has ended with no victory, no defeat, no settlement of internal political, religious and ethnic rifts, little freedom and less security for the mass of the people.
The American churches' opposition to the war was two-pronged, each prong being rooted deep in the Christian tradition.
A minority advocated pacifism, which rules out violence as a way to resolve conflict. The politicians, the generals and the military industrialists reject that out of hand.
Alongside that lay the churches' centuries-old criteria for judging whether a particular war is "just" - and the churches agreed almost unanimously that the war in Iraq failed on every count.
The criteria, and the comments of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on Iraq before the invasion, were:
• The cause must be just. Self-defence against an armed attack is considered always justified. But the bishops challenged whether there was any clear evidence of a direct link between Iraq and 9/11, or of a grave and imminent attack by Iraq. Seven years on, the assertion Saddam was building an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction has been thoroughly discredited.
• The war must have legitimate authority. The bishops said any decision to topple the Iraqi government by force "requires compliance with US constitutional imperatives, broad consensus within our nation, and some form of international sanction, preferably by the United Nations Security Council ... We would be deeply sceptical about unilateral uses of military force".
The war has undermined internationalism.
• All nonviolent options must first be exhausted. The bishops did not comment, but a statement by the leaders of 10 New Zealand churches cited the role of UN weapons inspectors and declared: "Initiating a war before all peace efforts have failed is immoral."
• The war must have a reasonable chance of success. The bishops: "War against Iraq could have unpredictable consequences, not only for Iraq but for peace and stability elsewhere in the Middle East. Would preventive or pre-emptive force succeed in thwarting serious threats or, instead, provoke the very kind of attack that it is intended to prevent?"
The military occupation has proved highly effective in recruiting insurgents: in 2003 they were estimated to number 15,000; in 2007, 70,000. Terrorist attacks, inside Iraq and beyond, have multiplied.
• The only permissible object is to redress the injury and re-establish peace. "Would the United States and the international community commit to the arduous, long-term task of ensuring a just peace? [Or] would the use of military force lead to wider conflict and instability?" The United States has spent $US1 trillion ($NZ1.4 trillion) on the war. The chances of finding even half that sum to rebuild the country are zilch.
• The use of arms must be proportionate to the injury suffered, and not produce evils greater than the wrong to be eliminated. How would another war in Iraq affect the civilian population? "How many more innocent people would suffer and die, or be left without homes, without basic necessities, without work?"
• Civilians are never legitimate targets. "While we recognise improved capability and serious efforts to avoid directly targeting civilians in war, the use of massive military force to remove the government of Iraq could have incalculable consequences for a civilian population that has suffered so much from war, repression, and a debilitating embargo."
More than 100,000 civilians have been killed. Two million have fled to Syria and Jordan. Two million more are internally displaced. Jobs have evaporated. Thousands of doctors and professionals have left the country. One child in four is malnourished. Homes have fewer hours of electricity. Corruption is rife.
Alas, poor country. If only the politicians and the generals had listened to the churches!
• Ian Harris is a journalist and commentator.
