Taking On Issues - Political Issues and Government Policies

A Hot Discussion Forum on Government Policies and Political Issues

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Election 2016
  • Big Government
  • Healthcare
  • The Other Side
  • What’s New
  • Your Freedom

Bombing Syria Doesn’t Provide Humanitarian Relief

April 7, 2017 By Takingonissues

Contrary to the way it has been framed, the Trump administration’s bombing of a Syrian military base has virtually nothing to do with humanitarian relief. Hurling 50 Tomahawk missiles at a single military base does not fundamentally undermine the Assad regime’s ability to harm its own people, and it has zero chance of altering the military and political realities on the ground. It is merely a symbolic gesture intended to deter further use of chemical weapons.

The problem with this rationale, from a humanitarian perspective, is that by last week the Assad regime had killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians with conventional weapons. On Tuesday, it reportedly killed about 75 people with chemical weapons. If saving Syrians from regime violence is the justification, this is a wholly irrational way to go about doing it.

There is no indication, as of yet, that the Trump administration is even operating under the premise that it needs legal authorization. Trump did not inform Congress of this elective bombing mission, much less ask for authorization, as the Constitution requires. Some members of Congress, including Sens. Tim Kaine, Rand Paul, and Ben Cardin, have made somewhat hollow demands that Trump seek congressional approval and legal authorization. Others, such as Sen. John McCain, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, seem all too eager to embrace the fiction that the president has the legal right to use military force at his own whim.

Furthermore, as Harvard law professor and former legal counsel to the George W. Bush administration Jack Goldsmith wrote in 2013, when it looked like President Obama was on the cusp of ordering a similar strike against Assad, international law prohibits the use of force without UN Security Council approval, unless in self-defense. The use of chemical weapons is a war crime, but so is bombing another country in violation of the UN Charter.

Put simply, Trump’s decision to attack the Syrian regime has no legal authority and little chance of actually mitigating the suffering of Syrians caught in the civil war. In fact, there is no U.S. military solution to the Syrian conflict. The options that do exist risk exacerbating regional insecurity and humanitarian strife and would require a massive commitment in blood and treasure that the American people seem unprepared to tolerate.

The key now is to see whether Trump will be able to resist the temptation to escalate and avoid the kind of mission creep that has sucked the United States into hopeless Middle East quagmires in the past. Trump administration officials have already begun to imply that removing Assad is an evolving administration goal now. And Trump’s own party is already lobbying for expanding the mission to regime change. Sen. Marco Rubio has called on the administration to increase support for rebels and coordinate with regional Sunni allies “to create alternatives to the Assad regime.”

A more paradigmatic example of mission creep would be hard to invent. If Washington does pursue regime change, it will pit the United States against Syria’s two main allies, Iran and Russia, and create a power vacuum in Syria that jihadist groups are best positioned to fill. In other words, every plausible near-term consequence of regime change would have catastrophic implications for U.S. security and regional stability.

Donald Trump has been president for only 77 days, and he has already violated repeated campaign pledges to avoid wars of choice in the Middle East and, specifically, to stay out of the Syrian civil war. The American people should take note that Trump governs as he tweets: irrationally, inconsistently, and without concern for the likely adverse consequences.  

John Glaser is associate director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Email, RSS Follow

Related

Subscribe to Taking on Issues

Enter your email address to subscribe to our site and receive notifications of new posts by email.

RSS Political News

  • Amazon Paid $0 Federal Taxes on Record Profits February 17, 2019
  • Democrat-Bashing Pollster Patrick Caddell Dies February 17, 2019
  • Trump Driving Out Precious Republican Voters February 17, 2019
  • Lawfare: How Congress; Obama Made Trump's Wall Possible February 17, 2019
  • Special Counsel prosecutors say they have Communications of Stone with WikiLeaks February 17, 2019
  • Portland Police and Right-Wing Organizer Exchanged Friendly Texts February 16, 2019
  • France Replaces Mom and Dad with 'Parent-1' and 'Parent-2' February 16, 2019
  • Mueller's Team Interviewed Sarah Huckabee Sanders February 16, 2019
  • Fact-Checking Trump's Speech Declaring National Emergency February 16, 2019

Archives

New Featured Articles

  • Sarah Sanders: Sure, we’re open to Deborah Ramirez testifying on Thursday too
    September 25, 2018

    Is that right? The vibe I got from right-wing reaction yesterday to the New Yorker’s story was that it was hot garbage (I agree), promoting an allegation which Deborah Ramirez herself claims she was unsure about for the past 35 years before mysteriously recovering her memory in the past six days. Is MAGA Nation all-in […]

    Email, RSS Follow
    […]
  • NAACP: Sessions is ‘unfit to serve’ as Attorney General
    January 11, 2017
    posted at 1:01 pm on January 11, 2017 by John Sexton […]
  • Oxford’s Junk Science on Fake News
    March 5, 2018
    Is National Review “junk news”? A panel of […]
  • Uh oh: Trump won’t say directly that he still has confidence in Bannon
    April 12, 2017
    posted at 11:21 am on April 12, 2017 by Allahpundit […]
  • Out: Straw bans. In: Balloon bans
    August 16, 2018
    All the recent talk about bans on plastic straws has […]
  • Donald Trump Shifts the West’s Focus to Protectionism
    June 21, 2018
    Credit: Flickr/Public Domain It was supposed to be the […]
  • Duke Divinity Crisis: The Documents Are Out
    May 7, 2017
    A source at DDS sends me the original e-mail exchanges […]
  • The President is sending very mixed signals on the Ex-Im bank
    April 17, 2017
    posted at 12:01 pm on April 17, 2017 by Jazz Shaw I […]
  • Is a backlash brewing over sponsors fleeing Laura Ingraham’s show?
    March 31, 2018
    Like clockwork, the hashtag resistance has begun in […]
  • Today’s hot topics: Shutdown theater, RNC merger, Krauthammer’s legacy, and more!
    December 18, 2018
    Today on The Ed Morrissey Show (4 pm ET), we have […]
  • NFL championships open thread
    January 20, 2019
    Ed: And so we come down to the final three games left […]
  • Why the Wrecking of the State Department Matters
    July 31, 2017
    Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks during a […]
  • Did the Washington Post just come out against sanctuary cities?
    January 23, 2017
    posted at 2:31 pm on January 23, 2017 by Jazz Shaw The […]
  • The Absurd, Failed War on Yemen
    November 6, 2017
    In addition to the cruelty of the Saudi-led […]
  • Tucson man arrested for death threats against Rep. Martha McSally
    May 16, 2017
    posted at 7:21 pm on May 16, 2017 by John Sexton A […]
Copyright © 2019 TakingOnIssues.com

Contact Us | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Advertise | About Us