The phrase "illegal war on Iraq" is being bandied about a fair bit. Greenpeace, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Canadian MP Svend Robinson (NDP) and Australian Senator Andrew Bartlett (Democrat), to name but a few from a long list, use the phrase as if there is no question about this war's legal status. Is this realistic? I think not.

For openers, where did this notion spring from that war is, by default, illegal in the first place? Possibly this is based on a narrow reading of Article 2 of the UN Charter, and especially the third principle by which the UN and its members are supposed to operate, which reads:

All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

If history—especially that of the Cold War—teaches us anything, it's that peace (if we take peace to simply mean "the absence of armed conflict") and justice have an annoying tendency of being mutually exclusive.