Poetry

...There was little doubt that the U.S...

...The main uncertainty was not about ultimate victory but about the level of casualties that would be required to achieve this result and therefore about the willingness of the American public to sustain the war effort...

...But the course of events ensured that this factor counted for less than it would normally...

...But the failure to see this point early does not invalidate a policy that attempts to reverse a mistaken judgment before its consequences become catastrophic...

...That interval was lengthy, but it makes more difference for political perception than for moral analysis...

...Third, once the occupation of Kuwait was complete and overt hostilities ceased, Iraq settled in to exploit its victim and to integrate Kuwait into its territory...

...t is true that the brutal character of Saddam Hussein's regime did not prevent various powers from collaborating with him before the invasion of Kuwait...

...From the beginning the requirement that there be a just cause for hostilities was present...

...Second, the Kuwaiti government was not able to mount a sustained resistance against the Iraqi invasions and occupation, which was carried out with overwhelming force...

...The initiative--the decision to launch a war to undo the Iraqi aggression--passed to the United States and to those states that found Hussein's hold on Kuwait profoundly objectionable...

...and its allies would prevail against the highly militarized but very vulnerable society of Iraq...

...The key step for the allies was to convert their air superiority into a decisive edge in the ground war...

...First, whether as a result of the speedy response of the United States to the Saudi request for troops or because Hussein's original plans had not extended beyond Kuwait, it quickly became apparent that the Iraqis were not going to invade Saudi Arabia or to annex its oil-producing areas...

...Kuwait was entitled to wage a war of self-defense and to ask for help both from its allies and from states concerned over the threat to international order presented by Iraq...

...Just-war theory also includes a requirement that the war being considered must have a reasonable prospect of success...

...France, Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States had all in different ways provided support for what the world now agrees was a murderous, tyrannical, and aggressive regime...

...This was done by hammering the ground forces from the air, by misleading the Iraqi command about our plan of battle, and by encouraging desertions from 362: Commonweal...

...During that time, the allies and other concerned powers had time and opportunity to explore alternative ways of resolving the dispute without resorting to war...

...The history of Western dealing with Saddam Hussein's regime over the years before 1990 exhibits a mixture of wishful thinking and willful ignorance, of economic greed and legalistic formalism that Western governments often adopt when they find themselves facing a distasteful despotism with which, for various reasol~ (good and bad), they think they have to deal and which they think they are powerless to alter...

...The Bush administration, which had unwisely attempted to operate on the principle that the war did not need congressional authorization, fortunately agreed to the congressional debate that took place before the January 15 deadline...

...Then, it took several months for the coalition to assemble sufficient forces to make threats that would be plausible to Hussein, a guileful and unyielding leader...

...Congress took its share of the responsibility for the decision, and the possibility that the war would lead sooner or later to a constitutional crisis was avoided...

...The Iraqi army, while technologically inferior to the allies, was a large and experienced force...

...Congress...

...There is no evidence that any significant element of Kuwaiti society, with the exception of some Palestinians, preferred Iraqi occupation to the rule of the al-Sabah family...

...It is true that large portions of the West, including governments and the media, have come relatively late to a clearheaded recognition of Saddam Hussein's threat to peace and order in the Middle East...

...The debate reminded us both of the gravity and of the inescapably political character of the war...

...From one angle, this was never a problem for the coalition in the Gulf...

...In this regard, it is extremely important that the war on Iraq was authorized by the UN Security Council on behalf of the international community, by several states in the Middle East, and by the U.S...

...All of these factors obscured reality: the fundamental act of war had been committed by Iraq with little provocation or warning...

...Another requirement that a just war must meet is that the war must be conducted by competent authority...