But the Bush administration, perhaps emboldened by its success in Afghanistan, proceeded to defy the post-World War II principles of international law. Last June, Bush announced a new doctrine of preemptive (really preventive) war against merely potential adversaries. That was meant to justify an invasion of Iraq. Even if this doctrine is seen as a legitimate nuclear-age extension of self-defense, however, the invasion does not seem justified. The United States would have had to demonstrate that the Iraqis had not merely a few chemical weapons (which had failed to deter Iran in the 1980s war) but a burgeoning nuclear program. But no such programs came to light during the inspections or the war. By Kantian standards, the war was aggression without justifiable cause.

Administration officials have tried to justify the war ex post facto entirely on utilitarian grounds -- that is, that the war will lead to the democratization or modernization of the Arab region. These arguments echo those of 19th- and early 20th-century imperialists, and indeed some neoconservatives, including Max Boot and Stanley Kurtz, have argued candidly for a return to imperialism. They have replaced the older promise of civilization with that of democracy or of modernization. The Bush administration, fearful of criticism from abroad, has steered clear of explicitly advocating imperialism, but it uses the same utilitarian logic in advancing its aims that European and American proponents of empire used a century ago.