Iraq War: Humanitarian Intervention?

No news item garners more interest and more debate today in America and around the world than the impending second war against Iraq. President George Bush led a coalition in a war against Iraq over a decade ago after Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, attacked and overran the small princely state of Kuwait.

Coalition forces "drew a line in the sand" and forced Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait. Of course, the popular mandate at the time was a liberation of Kuwait, but truly the only rallying cry could have been sovereignty, as the Kuwaiti people - subjects of a princely state - were anything but liberated according to the de Toquevillian version of liberation and democracy under which American and its allies function.

Today, a similar situation has reared its head. After prosecuting a war on terror in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Bali and other distant locales,...
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