Reply To: The Principle of International Law

[Siderite]

I am highly sceptical of how this will lead to an improvement and agree with much of what is said in Iron-Awe’s post. There have already been reports of Trump reaching out to people in the regime to work with and neither he or Netanyahu are motivated by humanitarian concerns, so won’t prioritise it, and have not displayed competence. I am happy Europe didn’t join in with the main operation, but there is also the fact that Trump has aided Russia against our and Ukrainian interests, threatened Denmark and NATO over Greenland and insulted us for war dead when we came to their aid in Afghanistan after 9/11. We aren’t their puppets and mutual support loses weight when Trump decides to wreck relationships.

I am, however, unconvinced what passes as international law today serves much good. International law would have had us abandon Kosovars to what befell the Bosniaks. It didn’t help in Rwanda when no-one did anything to prevent the genocide. This could be argued to be a failed case of international law being applied, but when this has so often happened, it shows it is already a busted flush. With Russian veto powers on the UN security council, any action of any kind in Syria’s civil war would no doubt have been against international law. Yet I would argue that this meant allowing Syrians to put up with chemical warfare and 500-600,000 dead. When Qasam Soleimani was killed there was talk of how this was wrong, against international law and that maybe he could have been brought to justice by other means. I don’t know how; it would have been impossible to have him arrested without a regime collapse and it helped neuter Iran, and help Syrians when he was killed.

None of this is me trying to force others to my beliefs. Others have different intepretations and that is fine. I could be wrong, so could everyone else. It would be good if international law did count for something, but right now it isn’t strong and only those with more democratic and liberal outlooks partake. Some might say that this is good because why lower to others’ level, but it creates an imbalance that favours dictatorships in enforcing their will. I am not saying we should abandon all forms of morality in foreign policy and act like an Iran, Russia or China, but I am less bothered about legalism over whether a no fly zone over Syria would have been illegal or not when it could very well have helped Syrian lives. Same here with Iran. Also, I agree that American adherence to more humanitarian bounds to conflict will likely decrease further with Trump and all concerns about where this ends up and deterioration are valid.

I just wanted to put forward a different perspective about this because it is my view and I have my concerns that the current situation has already worsened because of a more standoffish approach over the past 15 years that allowed Russia to strengthen, involve itself in Syria and then attack Ukraine, as well as Iran to attack Syria and spearhead wars against Saudi in Yemen and Israel with its proxies. Though, I do appreciate that this is complex and the failure of non-intervention does not mean intervention is the best course of action.