Trouble with Mixed Motives: Debating the Political, Legal, and Moral Dimensions of Intervention

摘要

In the aftermath of the Iraq war and transfer to Iraqi authority, a bitter debate persists over the motives for the war and the reasons for the transatlantic antipathy it engendered. There are those who argue that moral talk coming out of the White House represents a fig leaf for realpolitik, a change in tactics after the failure to find evidence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Why had President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, both known for their moral personal philosophies and foreign policies, relied primarily on legal and threat-based justifications. Why did they leave until the eleventh hour the moral argument about Saddam's brutish behavior toward the Iraqi people. Does the timing of various justifications belie their validity.