The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles. What President Nixon and I tried to do was unnatural. And that is why we didn't make it.
? Henry Kissinger

As the Bush administration stands before Congress and the United Nations seeking a nod to wage war on Iraq, many critical questions are emerging in the minds of American people: Is this war justifiable? Should the United States go it alone? What will happen if we don't fight? What will happen if we do? But, perhaps the most important question is whether the United States is justified in engaging in a preemptive strike -- whether it is morally justifiable to fire before being fired on.

The reasons to go to war are obvious. Bush's team asserts that Saddam Hussein is an illogical, self-exalting man, not to be trusted with a pocketknife, let alone a nuclear stockpile. He possesses piles of chemical and biological weapons, and has not hesitated to use them against U.S. allies in the past. He is trying to obtain more of these weapons. Al-Qaeda is active in Iraq. The United States has diplomatic and economic interests in his region. And, time is not on our side.

While these may be compelling reasons to go to war, it is the intangibles that seem to be holding Congress -- and more so the United Nations -- from giving Bush a green light. As the United States continues on its Cold War-era style of fighting terrorism, it walks a very fine line. In trying to rid the world of "evils," President Bush must be very cognizant and caring of worldwide perception of the United States. As the United States has already been dubbed the "world bully" by many Arab and Islamic nations (and even NATO allies), it must regain the moral high ground and use it as the buttress of further anti-terrorist campaigns.

Such a huge preemptive strike has never been carried out by the United States. To be sure, the whole notion of preemptively striking the enemy has been accepted universally to be a faux pas, and that waiting until fired upon is the proper "etiquette." One of the most famous preemptive strikes of the last 50 years actually placed the United States on the losing side, as over two thousand U.S. troops were killed at Pearl Harbor. In 1967, Israel preemptively attacked the Egyptian Air Force, destroying it before it even left the ground.

Yet, what Bush is proposing now has one critical element that distinguishes itself from other past preemptive strikes, and raises the eyebrows of human rights proponents. This preemptive strike would be publicly announced. The United States has made no effort whatsoever at concealing this strategy, as was done in the cases cited above. This would be a tactic seen, certainly by the anti-American world, as a bludgeoning, a deathly shove by the American "bully."

Consequently, the Bush administration is struggling to gain a moral higher ground. It is conscientiously groping for a way to do something morally defensible and to do so in a way consistent with norms of international and Constitutional practice. And, in trying to do so, it is facing a skeptical Congress, and a critical United Nations.

Should we go to war with Iraq? Yes. Should we go now? Yes. Are we justified in doing so? Yes. We are not violating any precedent; rather, we are setting one. We are not stealthily planning a surprise attack, like the Japanese one on Pearl Harbor. We have not recently asked Hussein to let United Nations inspectors in -- we have continually done so for 11 years.

For those who claim that we are violating war etiquette, the Bush administration has only to draw a circle on a map showing the vast area of destruction Hussein's stockpile could potentially cause. As has been accepted by strategists for years, "the best offense is a good defense." The world has been backed into a corner by Iraq without even knowing it. Thankfully, the United States is now strong enough to push the world out of this corner, into a safer, less harmful place. Iraq's nuclear weapons must be destroyed. Anyone who gets in the way of this willfully and knowingly will be killed, for every war results in collateral damage.

-- Yoni Goodman '05 submits a column to the Justice