Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently announced that American troops will remain in Syria even after the fight against the Islamic State has ended. If the administration carries through on this promise, it will commit the American people to an indefinite conflict that could bring our troops into direct confrontation with the armed forces of Syria and its closest allies, Iran and Russia. In the process, it will break just about every relevant law on the books […]
Stabilizing the territory taken from the Islamic State is undoubtedly essential to ensuring terrorist threats do not re-emerge, and that must be a priority for the United States. But as the threat from the Islamic State diminishes and the Syrian conflict returns to a battle over whether Mr. Assad will regain full control over land held by rebels who are divided among themselves, it is no longer possible to argue that the mission is one of self-defense. If the president were to order American troops to hold Syrian territory in those circumstances, he would be ordering them to act in clear violation of the United Nations Charter […]
Congress must tell the president he cannot engage our troops in an illegal war in Syria. To allow this blatantly illegal action would spell the end of congressional authority over war. And it would offer incontrovertible evidence that the United States under President Trump is no longer a champion of the world order, but is ready and willing to tear it down. Läs artikel