The Ethical Case Against Withdrawal from Iraq

DEBATE over whether America should withdraw from Iraq has turned primarily on strategic questions. But one need not be a utopian – or, more dreaded still, a “Wilson ian” – to see that not all foreign-policy questions are strategic. Almost everyone, conservative or liberal, believes that ethical claims restrict to one degree or another the means by which a government may pursue its foreign-policy ends. (If not, the massive and indiscriminate slaughter of civilians would be morally permissible in the pursuit even of non-vital interests.) There may also be cases – though this is more controversial – in which ethical claims are sufficient in their own right to decide a policy.

So it is, I believe, with Iraq. Withdrawal of U.S. forces would in all likelihood be a strategic disaster. But a powerful case can be made that it would also violate a duty America owes Iraq; that the duty alone gives us reason enough to stay; and that conservatives and liberals should be able to agree on this point.

About the Author

Jason Lee Steorts

Jason Lee Steorts is a former managing editor of National Review.

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DEBATE over whether America should withdraw from Iraq has turned primarily on strategic questions. But one need not be a utopian – or, more dreaded still, a “Wilson ian” – to see that not all foreign-policy questions are strategic. Almost everyone, conservative or liberal, believes that ethical claims restrict to one degree or another the means by which a government may pursue its foreign-policy ends. (If not, the massive and indiscriminate slaughter of civilians would be morally permissible in the pursuit even of non-vital interests.) There may also be cases – though this is more controversial – in which ethical claims are sufficient in their own right to decide a policy.

So it is, I believe, with Iraq. Withdrawal of U.S. forces would in all likelihood be a strategic disaster. But a powerful case can be made that it would also violate a duty America owes Iraq; that the duty alone gives us reason enough to stay; and that conservatives and liberals should be able to agree on this point.