The case against Iraq is simple.
Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The Kuwaiti Government and other Arab countries called for American help. The US being a private citizen, was not obliged to help, but once it decided to help, as a responsible private citizen its job required it to complete the task before getting out.

What does “completing the task” mean?

Gandhiji wanted us to separate a person’s evil from the person while punishing him. This makes no sense when dealing with individuals, but it makes a lot of sense when we are talking of countries.* The evil in case of Japan and Germany in WWII was their regimes. In case of Pakistan, it would be its army. In case of Iraq, it is Saddam Hussain. The humane course of action for the US to follow would have been to go in, remove Saddam Hussain, replace it by a decent regime, and get out.

Instead it chose to stop half-way through and impose sanctions on Iraq, in effect punishing Iraqis for the sins of their leader. They began a cat-and-mouse game with Saddam trying to get him to destroy his Weapons of Mass Destruction in exchange for removal of sanctions. Saddam did not co-operate. He surreptitiously continued his programme, evaded inspectors and made use of schisms within the Security Council to get away with it.

Quite clearly, the only way to stop him is to remove him from power.

What are the alternatives? Don’t fight and keep the inhumane sanctions? Remove the sanctions? Given that even a military defeat and the glare of inspections did not dissuade him from his attempts to get a nuclear warhead, is removal of sanctions an ?ption? And given that he has indulged in adventurism before, what are the chances that he will stay quiet once he does get a nuke?

This in a nutshell is the case for the war. I myself can think of many many objections to it, and I will be answering them in subsequent parts. But here are the first few ones.

“Sovereign Nation”
Yes, nations have a right to sovereignty, but a criminal loses his rights once he violates the rights of others.

“Preemption”
Preemption is not as outlandish a doctrine as it seems. Even in civilised society, there are preventive crimes (such as drunk driving ), actions that are illegal not because some harm has been done, but because performing them would be really irresponsible and risky. In an anarchy, pre-emptive action is justified, simply because there is no policeman to investigate suspicious behaviour.

(*Sorry about this gratuitous abuse of Gandhiji’s words to actually justify violence, but I am only following the tradition of the past 55 years)