Operation Iraqi Freedom: prudence and the ‘great power responsibility’ to deliberate

This article conducts a normative assessment of Operation Iraqi Freedom to enquire whether it could be described as a responsible action. It relies on the theoretical framework provided by the English School of International Relations to highlight yardsticks of a responsible action, besides international law, and states that one of them is prudence. This normative criterion is then used to examine Operation Iraqi Freedom. The conclusion states that according to the normative criterion, clarified in this article, the Bush administration’s decision‐making process in the run‐up to the war could not be termed as prudent and responsible.