Civic housekeeping: Jean Elshtain on mothering and other duties

Christian Century, May 17, 2003 by Wendy Murray Zoba

Elshtain thinks the standard for just cause in responding to terrorism was met easily in the light of the attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001. But what about the case of Iraq? In September 2002, when a hundred scholars and ethicists signed a petition that read, "As Christian ethicists, we share a common moral presumption against a preemptive war on Iraq by the United States," Elshtain was not numbered among the signatories. She felt the statement did not demonstrate a thorough examination of all aspects of the issue. She concluded that the just war tradition does not throw "insuperable barriers" to a war on Iraq. Still, she was uncertain: "While jus ad bellum, the occasion for a resort to force, is met and the rules of engagement meet jus in bello stipulations, the unknowns are such that prudential considerations tell us to stay our hand." In other words, meeting just war criteria does not oblige one to act.

She thought that weapons inspections "had been tried and found wanting." "There's a lot of wishful thinking going on about the power and efficiency of the UN. How many times do you allow yourself to be taken on a walk down the primrose path?

"'Just peace' is precisely what animates just war thinking," she says. "If an unjust peace exists, deterrence is the only option and considerations of justice drive a resort to force in order that a 'just peace' is the end result."

In Just War Against Terror Elshtain argues "that true international justice is defined as the equal claim of all persons in the world to having coercive force deployed in their behalf if they are victims of one of the many horrors attendant upon radical political instability.... The principle I call 'equal regard' ... must sometimes be backed up by coercive force. This is an ideal of international justice whose time has come."

She acknowledges that "politics is always making decisions in a world of imperfect information. You are obliged to act on the best you can know. These are judgment calls. You bump up against uncertainty all the time because you never know the consequences of action or not acting." Recalling the strategy of appeasement that ultimately enabled Hitler to conquer most of Europe, she says that "to concentrate only on the consequences of acting is only half the job."

Several weeks into the war with Iraq, Elshtain expressed confidence that the American and British forces in Iraq had not intentionally targeted noncombatants. "Everyone knows that civilians will come in harm's way during a conflict. But everything possible must be done to minimize the damage." She was heartened by the fact that "over 90 percent of the aerial weapons in the U.S. arsenal deployed in the Iraq theater are precision-guided weapons. These are weapons of extraordinary accuracy and reduced lethality. Such weapons make it more rather than less likely that the principle of discrimination can be met; indeed, there are now fewer excuses than ever before in modern high-tech warfare for massive 'collateral damage' to occur."