Personally, I am all for bombing ISIS wherever they are. But, legally:
The embattled Syrian regime and its closest allies, Russia and Iran, will oppose American military action in its territory against Islamic State, unless the White House coordinates US actions with President Bashar Assad, the axis said on Thursday.
I presume Assad also objects to such an action.
So - how in the world can US justify going in and bombing in Syria without coordinating with Assad? There is no inkling of a threat to the US from ISIS in Syria. Even if there was, Syrian internationally-recognized government is already battling ISIS, quite ruthlessly and for a long time, so inaction of the government cannot be used as the justification. Syria is still a sovereign state, even with civil war going on. Isn’t it against all principles of international law to have US and others bomb Syria without coordinating it with the current Syrian government? And I mean, there is not even a pretense of following any international law whatsoever?
I believe that the inverse turn about is the point of this thread.
The answer, of course, is the same as it was in 2003…we don’t need to justify a decision to bomb the crap out of Syria no more than we did invading Iraq, except to our own electorate. Whether we SHOULD justify our actions on the world court is really another debate, but we certainly don’t have too, no more than Russia has had to justify it’s backhanded and quasi-covert invasion of the Ukraine or annexation of the Crimea or China’s continued occupation of Tibet.
Actually, no, the “inverse turn about” is not the point. In 2003, the justification was, ostensibly (note the word), Iraq’s non-compliance with international laws and UN resolutions. Again, ostensibly, so don’t start arguing about whether it was real or not.
In the current situation, again, even ostensibly, there is no justification whatsoever that I can see. We’re not attacking Syria. We’re attacking Syrian territory to damage a group that the current Syrian government is fighting, quite stridently, for several years already. Without Syrian government’s acquiescence to our actions, I really don’t see how it can be justified.
If I had to justify this, I would claim that Syria is a failed state and is no longer “sovereign” over its territory. But then, that could justify lots of folks going in there for whatever reason. And it would mean that we could only bomb rebel held territory.
He could try. It’s unclear to me that Ukraine meets what would be considered a “failed state”. But yes, that has it’s problems. That’s why a said if I had to try and justify it. I don’t actually think it is justifiable.
Chutzpah, like the kid who killed his parents, asking for leniency because he’s an orphan. Putin caused Ukraine’s inability to govern its eastern provinces!
I thought the justification was pretty much that Assad gasses his own people, so if he doesn’t like it, he can lump it. Obama said just about as much in his speech.
No one. That’s why we get to do what we like. Plus, there’s the whole only superpower in the world thing. Who’s going to arrest us for breaking “international law”?
n.b.: I don’t condone this, just pointing out the Realpolitik. Which you are fully aware of.
Not really the same situation as with Ukraine. What I’m getting at is that the US was kinda/sorta willing to go to war with Syria a year ago over the poison gas incident. As it turned out, Congress never voted on it and we settled for destroying their chemical weapons instead.
But we’re never going to be friends with the Assad regime. If airstrikes inside Syria are “not legitimate”, that is, an act of war, the US (or at least Obama and certain members of Congress) don’t give a shit- they promote the ouster of Assad as it is and would like an excuse to launch a Hellfire missile up his ass.
So, our warlike countenance toward Syria dates back to their illegitimate use of WMDs. Russia’s warlike countenance toward Ukraine dates back to… the people wanting a representative leader instead of a Russian puppet, and doing something about it. See the difference? Or is it really about the will of the people not mattering in either of those places any more than it matters to Mitch McConnell that poor people in Kentucky and smart people everywhere want a higher minimum wage?
Yes, but that was willing to go to war with Syria. The current thing is not “going to war with Syria”. It is going to war with a terrorist organization inside Syria, with no excuse that Syria is harboring it or supporting it.
Yes, but the OP specifically asks about the legal situation. From the point of view of international law, whether the US government of the day likes or admires the government of the day in another sovereign state is irrelevant; it doesn’t give the US licence to attack the territory of that other state, and not have it count as an act of aggression.
The US would have a self-defence argument if attacks on the US were being launched from Syrian territory and the Syrian government of the day were either unwilling or unable (and it probably doesn’t matter much which) to prevent this. But I’m not aware of any attacks on the US being launched from Syrian territory.
As Terr point out, any justification of these measures which rest on the US government’s assessment of the morality, legitimacy or behaviour of the current Syrian regime can be echoed in similar justifications for Russian action against the Ukraine.
But if the Assad regime considers attacking ISIS inside Syria an act of war, the US would be happy to commence hostilities against Assad as well. He unleashed WMDs against civilians. Therefore, the Assad regime isn’t considered to be much/any different from a marauding terrorist organization.
