JEAN BETHKE ELSHTAIN writes in the Boston Globe that an attack on Iraq would satisfy the demands of just war theory:

There are many puzzling features to the current debate. We hear a lot, and rightly, about not going it alone. But in fact we are not. The Bush administration is seeking congressional authorization (”legitimate authority,” as the just war tradition calls it) to use US military might. It is urging the Security Council to adopt a strong resolution that basically calls upon the Iraqi regime to abide by all the other resolutions the UN has passed and Iraq has ignored.

When critics bemoan the current administration’s alleged unilateralism, they seem to be operating under a peculiar double standard. The United States, working around the clock to secure support for the preventive use of force to disarm the Iraqi regime, is accused of egregious unilateralism. But a state -Iraq – that has behaved and continues to behave unilaterally in defiance of the international community’s various and repeated resolutions is let off the hook. Why? . . .

Justice falls by the wayside in such preachments. The Iraqi victims of Saddam Hussein are not considered worthy of serious consideration. But just war theory demands that we consider them, as well as Saddam’s potential victims outside Iraq.

Worth reading in its entirety.