Giancarlo, I am happy to see at least one other proponent of Just War Theory in the forum. I appreciate the moral dimension it adds to conflicts. I agree that the probability of success represents one of the moral complex prongs of Just War Theory, though having worked in government, I have found that “just cause” is often a more slippery qualification than initially understood. For example, of the justifications of the George W. Bush Administration entering the War in Iraq, multiple reasons were publicly expressed, including Saddam Hussein’s possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs); alleged ties to al-Qaeda; the gassing and killing of Kurds during his reign; and the removal of newborn babies from incubators by Iraqi soldiers. After a decades-long conflict that uncovered no WMDs and increased terrorism and human rights violations in the region, one begins to wonder whether the reasons or intentions publicly expressed by the Bush Administration were actually the true reasons for the original invasion.
