Well, that’s Iran’s version, have you heard that from another source? Even if there were *some *truth to it, the US wasn’t about to ask permission or coordinate airstrikes with Syria, and Iran wasn’t going to join our efforts if we didn’t do that. I imagine that impasse was pretty predictable, so if the US did ask Iran if they wanted to participate, it would have been contingent on cutting out Syria, which they would have known to be a non-starter.
Besides, I’m not so sure the Sunni Arab members of the alliance would have been too keen with Iran being involved, even if we somehow were.
I hear ya. On the other hand- do nothing, what could possibly go wrong? Do we let these guys conquer Iraq? Where else will they spread?
I’m confident our military can contain these guys. I just wish Congress would raise the revenue to pay for it- otherwise this just looks like the next war on Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, education and the rest.
In case there are still skeptics that doubt the collective self-defense part of the UN Charter, here is a quote from the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon:
If the UN Secretary General endorses the idea that ISIL is an immediate threat to security, I take that as a pretty convincing chunk of evidence that Iraq, the US, and others are legitimately acting in self-defense.
Being a threat to “international peace” is pretty vague, and even Obama says that ISIL is not a direct threat to the US. Those are two different things.
Germany declared war on the US, so I don’t see that as an issue. When one nation declares war on another, you don’t need any other justification to attack.
[QUOTE=voltaire]
Well, that’s Iran’s version, have you heard that from another source?
[/QUOTE]
I think you mean it’s the US’s version, and I haven’t really looked at another source. AFAIK, Iran isn’t denying it was asked if it wanted to participate, nor are the other countries. Be kind of silly for the US to lie about that, and pointless too, since it would be easier for us just not to even bother asking.
I think it was totally true, until I see something indicating that any country asked disagrees. As for permission, it wasn’t about permission…we stated we were going to do this, and asked if other countries wanted to participate. Permission never came into it, so not sure where you are going with that.
Well, during the first Iraqi war there were nations predominantly Sunni and Shia involved, so it’s not that much of a stretch. Granted, Iran wasn’t involved, but that has more to do with their relationship with the US and with their other neighbors than sectarian religion, per se…and vice versa. I don’t know how the coalition Obama et al are putting together would have reacted if Iran had chosen to join, to be honest, but there were several countries that weren’t exactly bosom buddies that joined the US in the first gulf war, so it’s plausible that it could have happened. Iran chose not to, probably for it’s own good reasons, but this isn’t a subtle or not so subtle demonstration to Iran, and has really nothing to do with them…at least from OUR perspective. They mileage probably does vary, and they see everything in terms of a threat to themselves (and that everything that happens in the region revolves around them), so…
Uh, so what? Again, I’m responding to the question of what is the international legal justification for the U.S. attacking ISIL, not whether its a good thing or not.
Based on Ban’s statement, it seems fairly clear that the UN Secretary General agrees that the U.S. attacking ISIL, whether in Iraq or Syria, is a legitimate use of force against a terrorist group that has attacked Iraq. And you’ll note my previous posts argued that the UN Charter allows the U.S. and other countries to come to Iraq’s aid in its own self-defense efforts.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that the US can’t aid Iraq in attacking ISIL inside Iraq’s border. They invited us in. And the US pretty much does whatever it wants around the world with or without the UNSC, so Ban’s approval or objection isn’t going to affect what Obama does. Ban’s opinion on the matter is certainly important, but it’s hardly authoritative. It is the UNSC that matters and we’ll never know precisely what that body would do except that it’s almost a certainty Russia would vote Nyet.
It’s really an intellectual exercise to argue whether the US has the legal authority to bomb Syria because there is no legal recourse that anyone has when we do.
They want to be able to claim to speak for all Muslims and turn this whole affair into a religious war, but still, would you just ignore this kind of thing? It isn’t their only release that could be construed as a declaration of war.
It is a violation of international law to bomb a sovereign country, somewhat more so without a declaration of war against the appropriate party.
I suspect that Assad, of the Syria Assads, won’t much mind ISIS being bombed, despite it looking like he is weak, ISIS is one of his many enemies.
Bombing ISIS is not like invading Iraq. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. ISIS is in fact killing our citizens and attacking our allies. From a practical point of view, it not going to get everybody in the region hating us more. Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq all hate them some ISIS.
As for boots on the ground, I say buy some cheap surplus boots and drop them out of a bomber from 40,000 feet.
ISIS is not a sovereign state and has no capability to wage war against the US. Syria is the internationally recognized government with sovereignty over the land called “Syria”. If we want to bomb Syria, we are doing so against international law. Why do you think no other Wester Democracy is joining us in this effort? Obama has even stated that ISIS is not an imminent threat to the US. It was the Bush Doctrine that said we didn’t need to be under imminent threat in order to wage war. I’m surprised to see so many people here support that doctrine just because it’s Obama doing it.
The Bush Doctrine can mean any number of things. From pulling out of treaties unilaterally, to preemptive war against non-immediate threats, to fighting in countries that harbor terrorists, to deposing foreign regimes we don’t like to spreading democracy around the world. It was a universal phrase to add weight to internationally lawless behavior believed by the people in power to be advantageous to what they called the national interest at the time.
The Obama Doctrine seems to be a subset of the Bush Doctrine that is more narrowly focused on bombing the shit out of a particular terrorist group that is killing American citizens for kicks, including on Syrian soil. This isn’t as much of a stretch of international law as the various Bush Doctrines were. America has been pounding the shit out of terrorists and pirates on foreign soil since the “shores of Tripoli”. This seems to be narrowly focused to killing people who are generally agreed to be bad guys. Unlike the two major blocks of American people who thought that Saddam Hussein fell on one side or the other of being Al Queda and having weapons of mass destruction, there only appear to be a few Americans who don’t think ISIS is an enemy.
If Syria is doing more than token complaining, they are a member state of the UN and can complain vigorously there.
So while there are superficial similarities between how Bush handled Al Queda by attacking Al Queda’s sworn enemy, Iraq, and that ISIS is a sworn enemy of Syria, Turkey, Iran, Iraq (and probably Jordan), these are not comparable situations. Besides which bombing and advisers are not the same as a full scale invasion of the wrong country.
It’s damn near impossible to tell what is really going on between the Iranians and the Americans. Are they secretly coordinating, as some sources claim? Or are they plotting against one another even now, using the ISIS crisis for their own ends?
Most likely, it’s a little bit of both.
On the one hand, the Americans made sure not to invite the Iranians to that pre-strike buddy-buddy bonding conference in Paris. So there’s a nice hard slap right in the face, to get things started. But ah, on the other hand, Kerry has said Iran has “a role to play” in fighting ISIS; Khameini has claimed that “the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs requested Iran’s help in a recent meeting with Iran’s deputy foreign minister”; and…
A local source - mentioned here - says that “State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke admitted on Friday that Washington discussed the Iraq situation with Iranian representatives on the margins of the conference about Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. The two sides talked about the threat ISIL poses.”
I think what we’re seeing, and will see even more of, is two separate anti-ISIS coalitions, one led by the U.S. and another led by Iran. The U.S. one includes, primarily, states - such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, etc., etc. The Iranian one includes, primarily, non-state actors such as Iraq’s Shi’ite militias.
These two statements are simply made out of whole cloth. You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about, and I question whether you’ve read the thread at all. I’ve cited the relevant international law on this situation.
IMHO, If ISIS were a typical, half-way secular or nationalist or even, a moderate form of Islam, no one would think of it as worth bombing or corralling. The beheadings and reports of religious based atrocities, extreme treatment of all prisoners, etc. etc. are what turned the ‘world’ against ISIS.
What seems counterintuitive is the attraction these atrocious acts seems to have for second or third generation Arabs/Muslims in other countries, trying to return to the area to join…ISIS says, themselves, that the beheading videos are ‘recruiting’ propaganda… I don’t really understand why.
