The just war theory, Iran and the morality of blockades | Opinion

The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz raises a number of strategic and moral questions. These questions are, of course, part of a larger discussion about war and its justification.

The media tends to dwell on practical and strategic issues. News reports focus on weapons, tactics and targeting. Practical questions about the Iran War include: How long it will last? How much will it cost? How will it impact the global oil economy? With the blockade, one wonders how the U.S. Navy will enforce it. Will ships be boarded or sunk? And will it actually work to put pressure on Iran?

But practical conversations ignore whether the war and the blockade are morally justified. The moral conversation begins with the justification of the entire war. The just war theory maintains that war can be justified when a legitimate authority pursues a just cause with right intentions, and when war is a proportional last resort.

With regard to Iran, the cause and intentions have often been unclear. At this point, the justification appears to be nuclear non-proliferation. Other rationales have been offered, including regime change. If non-proliferation is the main idea, this is a kind of “preventive war.”

Scholars who write about the just war theory tend to think that preventive wars are difficult to justify. The moral problem is escalation. Can the dogs of war be unleashed against merely speculative future threats?

In an unjust war, strategic questions are moot

If the preventive war against Iran is not justified, then the blockade is also not justifiable. If the cause is unjust, then every tactic is wrong by implication.

Even within a justified war, moral judgment ought to trump strategic considerations. There are limits to what can be done in pursuit of a just cause. Most obviously, it is wrong to bomb noncombatants and destroy civilian infrastructure. War is properly targeted against combatants. Civilians should be spared.

That’s why the threats President Donald Trump made against Iran last week are immoral. The president threatened to destroy civilian infrastructure. And then Trump declared, “a whole civilization will die tonight.” Such a genocidal threat is wicked.

The president’s defenders suggest he was only pretending to be a “madman” in making those threats. But the “madman strategy” is pernicious: It is wrong to threaten evil, even if you don’t intend to carry it out. Genocidal threats open the door to escalation and dehumanization — which are serious concerns in thinking about blockades.

If the blockade of oil does not work, will we escalate to food and medicine? With the prior genocidal threat already on the table, the worry about escalation is not irrelevant.

Blockades and siege warfare are morally problematic because these strategies tend to harm noncombatants, while leaving combatants unscathed. Of course, much depends on the specific form of the blockade. If children cannot get food and medicine, the moral problem is obvious. But if a blockade is focused on a single commodity like oil, the moral calculus changes.

Sieges and blockades are strategies of “total war.” They attack the whole country, including its economy. These attacks lie on a continuum with other immoral tactics such as area bombing or the deliberate destruction of food and water supplies.

The Medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides said that a siege can only be morally justified if it leaves open the possibility of escape. A city may not be surrounded on four sides, he said, but only three.

One wonders whether the blockade of Iran aims to keep people bottled up, with the intention of preventing escape and rescue. A strategy of coercive containment ultimately harms vulnerable noncombatants. Soldiers, leaders and loyalists typically survive sieges, while innocent civilians are cornered and die of malnutrition and disease.

Pacifists warn that warfare tends in the direction of depravity. Escalation occurs, genocide is threatened, and vulnerable people are harmed. Strategists often say, “the end justifies the means.” But moral thinkers insist that our ends be good and our means be just.

War offers primitive answers to complex human questions. It is rarely the right answer. Morality demands that we evolve beyond the lust for power and domination. And if we must fight, we ought to avoid brutality, escalation and dehumanization.

Andrew Fiala is a professor of philosophy and director of The Ethics Center at Fresno State.