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One Year into Iraq: What Must Britain Re-evaluate?

Dr. John Sloboda, March 2004

In 2003 the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, commanded UK armed forces to join a US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, after obtaining majority support in a formal vote in the House of Commons.

The consequences of this decision have been momentous: for international relations and the effectiveness of the United Nations; for domestic politics within the USA and the UK; for the well-being and morale of those troops called upon to serve; but above all, for the Iraqi people, whose aspirations for peaceful and secure lives appear as elusive as they ever have been these last 15 or more years. For many, subsequent events have indicated that the invasion of Iraq was the wrong act, at the wrong time, and taken for the wrong reasons. Calls for new thinking are being made with increasing urgency.

This briefing paper by ORG’s Executive Director, John Sloboda, outlines three fundamental issues for Britain and its future role in the world:

• The future role of British armed forces.
• How UK participation in future ‘wars of intervention’ might be justified and legitimised.
• The UK's role in effective action needed to eliminate terrorism, and its root causes.

It argues that there are vital lessons to be learnt from the war in Iraq and a broader task of relating the specific lessons to the long-term questions on whose answers much more than the future of Iraq may depend. This may require more fundamental reappraisal than has so far been undertaken by policymakers in the mainstream of post cold-war society.