WE MUST DEMAND NO WAR WITH IRAN!

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War & Peace

The US Public Doesn’t Want War With Iran. The Senate Must Reaffirm That.
by Hassan El-Tayyab
January 12, 2020
Truthout

PHOTO: Demonstrators outside the Capitol call on the U.S. not to wage war against Iran on January 9, 2020, in Washington, D.C. Sarah Silbiger / Getty Images
 
As early as this coming week, the U.S. Senate may vote on whether to join the House of Representatives in asserting the rightful role of the U.S. Congress in deciding whether the president is authorized to wage war against Iran.

It’s not looking likely that the Senate will vote on the same bill passed by a bipartisan majority of 224-194 in the House on Thursday because Republicans leadership may not allow this bill to get out of committee. The passage of that bill, H.Con.Res.83, which was introduced by Rep. Elissa Slotkin, was a critical move by Congress at this moment of escalating tensions, making clear that the House doesn’t want more military aggression against Iran.

Senate Republicans should obey the law and bring this up for a vote, as the War Powers Act of 1973 explicitly states that this concurrent resolution is privileged and must be brought to the floor. If not, the Senate will have the chance to vote on Senator Tim Kaine’s Iran War Powers Resolution, S.J.Res.68, regardless.

A Symbolic Victory in the House or Something More?

The bill passed by the House on Thursday invoked the War Powers Act of 1973 to limit the president’s ability to launch unauthorized war against Iran by forcing him to obtain congressional authorization before taking further military action.

Three Republicans voted in favor of the resolution, including Republicans Reps. Matt Gaetz and Francis Rooney of Florida as well as Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. It was less than many supporters of the bill had hoped for, as a similar provision to the FY2020 Defense policy bill had 27 Republicans vote in support, but it was still a significant statement of bipartisanship in support for congressional war powers.

On the House floor during debate, Rep. Gaetz said, “I represent more troops than any other member of this body. I buried one of them earlier today at Arlington. If our service members have the courage to fight and die in these wars, Congress ought to have the courage to vote for or against them. I’m voting for this resolution.”

Though peace activists have lauded the passage of the bill as historic, there has been a dispute over whether this bill is binding and has the force of law because it is a concurrent resolution, meaning it doesn’t go to the president for a signature and cannot be vetoed. But House Democrats and several legal scholars have argued that concurrent resolutions under the War Powers Act are a special case that hasn’t been tested by the courts yet and should be interpreted as legally binding until the courts explicitly say otherwise. Rep. Ro Khanna has argued that the Supreme Court case Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer could be used as precedent for enforcing war powers resolutions, as it was an example of the courts stepping in to allow Congress to limit the powers of the president.

The bottom line is that if Rep. Slotkin’s concurrent resolution were to be passed by the Senate — which is unlikely, considering Majority Leader McConnell won’t bring this up for a vote — then Democratic leadership would argue that the Youngstown Supreme Court case says that it is binding. Republican leadership and the Trump administration might then argue that it is not, citing the Immigration and Naturalization Service vs. Chadha Supreme Court case. Ultimately it wouldn’t bind the president unless Democrats forced the Supreme Court to make a decision.

The Senate Vote Ahead

Now that the House has spoken out, the question of Iran War Powers goes to the Senate, which is expected to vote on Sen. Kaine’s Iran War Powers Resolution either this week or next. Kaine’s resolution was structured as a joint resolution and will not face the same legal criticisms as Rep. Slotkin’s concurrent resolution, since there is no question that a joint resolution can be enacted into law.

In a huge win for the peace movement, Senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul have come out publicly in favor of Sen. Kaine’s bill. After being briefed on the intelligence used to justify Trump’s strike on Suleimani, Sen. Lee said it was, “the worst briefing I’ve seen, at least on a military issue, in the nine years I’ve served in the United States Senate.” He is now an original cosponsor on Sen. Kaine’s resolution.

The War Powers Act reaffirms what’s already in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution and makes explicitly clear where war powers reside – Congress.

To get over the hurdle of passing Senator Kaine’s Iran War Powers Resolution, all Senate Democrats need to vote in favor, along with at least four Republicans. Senators Todd Young and Susan Collins have both asked for changes to the text and have indicated that if these are made, they are open to supporting it. The changes include removing any language criticizing Trump for assassinating Suleimani — which would attempt to make this an apolitical war powers issue. Other members on the swing list include Senators Lisa Murkowski, Jerry Moran, Steve Daines, Doug Jones and Joe Manchin, who all voted in favor of the Yemen War Powers Resolution last May.

A Momentous Moment

While we wait for the Senate to act, it’s important to reflect on the importance of this House vote and this moment. The War Powers Act reaffirms what’s already in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution and makes explicitly clear where war powers reside – Congress. The law was passed in 1973, not just as a rebuke to President Nixon for bombing Cambodia in secret and the unpopular Vietnam war, but to also ensure that Congress going forward had a mechanism to force votes and debates on where and when we go to war. It’s a welcome sign to see members reasserting a constitutional power that has been left on the shelf to gather dust for decades without use. The House has made it clear that Trump does not have the authority to attack Iran. The House vote also showed that members of Congress are with the American people, who according to recent polling, overwhelmingly want no war with Iran and a diplomacy-based approach for easing tensions.

While we may not have the votes to override an almost inevitable Trump veto should this legislation pass both chambers, it’s critical that Congress force the question.

While we may not have the votes to override an almost inevitable Trump veto should this legislation pass both chambers, it’s critical that Congress force the question. Even if this is not enacted into law, it will help deescalate tensions with Iran, win in the court of public opinion, and set the stage for further congressional action during consideration of defense appropriations and authorization bills later this year. Some legal experts have also argued these votes could be used in a potential Supreme Court lawsuit against the President over separation of powers issues.

After authorizing a $738 billion FY2020 military budget that was stripped of measures preventing the President Trump from starting an unauthorized war with Iran, Congress now has an opportunity to change direction. At a time when we need to address so many issues here at home, from crumbling infrastructure, rising inequality, climate change, and more, it’s absolutely critical for Congress and the American people not to let the president waste trillions of dollars and human lives on a war of choice with Iran. The last thing America or the world needs is another endless war in the Middle East. The House and Senate must pass the Iran War Powers Resolution immediately, uphold their constitutional responsibilities and find a pathway to peace with Iran through diplomacy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Hassan El-Tayyab is Friends Committee on National Legislation’s (FCNL) lead lobbyist on Middle East policy. Prior to joining FCNL in August 2019, he was co-director of the national advocacy group Just Foreign Policy, where he led their lobbying work to advance a more progressive foreign policy in the Middle East and Latin America. Follow him on Twitter: @HassanElTayyab.

PHOTO: Demonstrators outside the Capitol call on the U.S. not to wage war against Iran on January 9, 2020, in Washington, D.C. Sarah Silbiger / Getty Images

Noam Chomsky Says the U.S. Is a Rogue State and Suleimani’s Assassination Confirms It

"What's Past is Prologue..."

NATAMBU’S LAW states: “No matter how bad things are or appear to be one can rest assured, upon further investigation, that in reality things are FAR WORSE than anything one could possibly imagine”

REPEAT...(from 3 days ago)...

All,

We desperately need at least 2 million citizens to actively participate in a massive march on the white house and the Pentagon NOW...TODAY. It's absolutely imperative that we seriously marshall all of our antiwar strength throughout the entire country to engage in a colossal and ongoing civil disobedience campaign to stop the vile sinister criminal known forevermore as our very own IMPEACHED SCUMBAG-IN-CHIEF from dragging this country and the rest of the world down into the bloody sewer that is this maniac's most heartfelt desire. It's time to stop fucking around and PRETENDING that this unhinged monster and international disgrace is even sane let alone capable of resolving global conflict via rational political decisions and state diplomacy.

Ultimately we must not fail in our collective effort to remove this malevolent human malady from office and to aggressively oppose and resist with everything within us his clearly diabolical plans to use us all as cannon fodder in his neofascist fantasy of maintaining and extending the tyrannical madness that currently passes for "politics" in this rapidly disintegrating empire masquerading as a democratic Republic. Stay tuned and remain vigilant no matter what happens. Trust me: We're really gonna need it now, more than ever...

Kofi

https://truthout.org/…/noam-chomsky-us-is-a-rogue-state-and…

Interview
War And Peace

Noam Chomsky: US Is a Rogue State 
and Suleimani’s Assassination Confirms It
by C.J. Polychroniou
January 7, 2020
Truthout

PHOTO: Antiwar activists protest in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., on January 4, 2020. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images

Trump’s decision to assassinate one of Iran’s most prominent and highly respected military leaders, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, has added yet another name to the list of people killed by the U.S. — which many rightly see as the world’s biggest rogue state.

The assassination has escalated hostilities between Tehran and Washington and created an even more explosive situation in the politically volatile Middle East. As was to be expected, Iran has vowed to retaliate on its own terms for the killing of its general, while also announcing that it will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. Iraq’s parliament, in turn, has voted to expel all U.S. troops, but Trump has responded with threats of sanctions if the U.S. is forced to remove its troops from the country.

As world-renowned public intellectual Noam Chomsky points out in this exclusive interview for Truthout, the primary aim of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has been to control the region’s energy resources. Here Chomsky — a university professor emeritus at MIT and laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona who has published more than 120 books on linguistics, global affairs, U.S. foreign policy, media studies, politics and philosophy — offers his analysis of Trump’s reckless act and its possible effects.

C.J. Polychroniou: Noam, the U.S. assassination of Iran’s Quds Force commander Qassim Suleimani has reaffirmed Washington’s long-held obsession with Tehran and its clerical regime, which goes all the way back to the late 1970s. What is the conflict between U.S. and Iran all about, and does the assassination of Suleimani constitute an act of war?

Noam Chomsky: Act of war? Perhaps we can settle on reckless international terrorism. It seems that Trump’s decision, on a whim, appalled high Pentagon officials who briefed him on options, on pragmatic grounds. If we wish to look beyond, we might ask how we would react in comparable circumstances.

Suppose that Iran were to murder the second-highest U.S. official, its top general, in the Mexico City international airport, along with the commander of a large part of the U.S.-supported army of an allied nation. Would that be an act of war? Others can decide. It is enough for us to recognize that the analogy is fair enough, and that the pretexts put forth by Washington collapse so quickly on examination that it would be embarrassing to run through them.

Suleimani was greatly respected — not only in Iran, where he was a kind of cult figure. This is recognized by U.S. experts on Iran. One of the most prominent experts, Vali Nasr (no dove, and who detests Suleimani), says that Iraqis, including Iraqi Kurds, “don’t see him as the nefarious figure that the West does, but they see him through the prism of defeating ISIS.” They have not forgotten that when the huge, heavily armed U.S.-trained Iraqi army quickly collapsed, and the Kurdish capital of Erbil, then Baghdad and all of Iraq were about to fall in the hands of ISIS [also known as Daesh], it was Suleimani and the Iraqi Shia militias he organized that saved the country. Not a small matter.

As for what the conflict is all about, the background reasons are not obscure. It has long been a primary principle of U.S. foreign policy to control the vast energy resources of the Middle East: to control, not necessarily to use. Iran has been central to this objective during the post-World War II period, and its escape from the U.S. orbit in 1979 has accordingly been intolerable.

The “obsession” can be traced to 1953, when Britain — the overlord of Iran since oil was discovered there — was unable to prevent the government from taking over its own resources and called on the global superpower to manage the operation. There is no space to review the course of the obsession since in detail, but some highlights are instructive.
Suppose that Iran were to murder the second-highest U.S. official, its top general, in the Mexico City international airport.

Britain called on Washington with some reluctance. To do so meant surrendering more of its former empire to the U.S. and declining even more to the role of “junior partner” in global management, as the foreign office recognized with dismay. The Eisenhower administration took over. It organized a military coup that overthrew the parliamentary regime and re-installed the Shah, restoring the oil concession to its rightful hands, with the U.S. taking over 40 percent of the former British concession. Interestingly, Washington had to force U.S. majors to accept this gift; they preferred to keep to cheaper Saudi oil (which the U.S. had taken over from Britain in a mini war during World War II). But under government coercion, they were forced to comply: one of those unusual but instructive incidents revealing how the government sometimes pursues long-term imperial interests over the objections of the powerful corporate sector that largely controls and even staffs it — with considerable resonance in U.S.-Iran relations in recent years.
The Shah proceeded to institute a harsh tyranny. He was regularly cited by Amnesty International as a leading practitioner of torture, always with strong U.S. support as Iran became one of the pillars of U.S. power in the region, along with the Saudi family dictatorship and Israel. Technically, Iran and Israel were at war. In reality, they had extremely close relations, which surfaced publicly after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. The tacit relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are surfacing much more clearly now within the framework of the reactionary alliance that the Trump administration is forging as a base for U.S. power in the region: the Gulf dictatorships, the Egyptian military dictatorship and Israel, linked to Modi’s India, Bolsonaro’s Brazil and other similar elements. A rare semblance of a coherent strategy in this chaotic administration.

The Carter administration strongly supported the Shah until the last moment. High U.S. officials — [Henry] Kissinger, [Dick] Cheney, [Donald] Rumsfeld — called on U.S. universities (mainly my own, MIT, over strong student protest but faculty acquiescence) to aid the Shah’s nuclear programs, even after he made clear that he was seeking nuclear weapons. When the popular uprising overthrew the Shah, the Carter administration was apparently split on whether to endorse the advice of de facto Israeli Ambassador Uri Lubrani, who counselled that “Tehran can be taken over by a very relatively small force, determined, ruthless, cruel. I mean the men who would lead that force will have to be emotionally geared to the possibility that they’d have to kill ten thousand people.”
It didn’t work, and soon Ayatollah Khomeini took over on an enormous wave of popular enthusiasm, establishing the brutal clerical autocracy that still reigns, crushing popular protests.

Shortly after, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran with strong U.S. backing, unaffected by his resort to chemical weapons that caused huge Iranian casualties; his monstrous chemical warfare attacks against Iraqi Kurds were denied by Reagan, who sought to blame Iran and blocked congressional condemnation.

Finally, the U.S. pretty much took over, sending naval forces to ensure Saddam’s control of the Gulf. After the U.S. guided missile cruiser Vincennes shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in a clearly marked commercial corridor, killing 290 passengers and returning to port to great acclaim and awards for exceptional service, Khomeini capitulated, recognizing that Iran cannot fight the U.S. President Bush then invited Iraqi nuclear scientists to Washington for advanced training in nuclear weapons production, a very serious threat against Iran.

Conflicts continued without a break, in more recent years focusing on Iran’s nuclear programs. These conflicts ended (in theory) with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, an agreement between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN, plus Germany, in which Iran agreed to sharply curtail its nuclear programs — none of them weapons programs — in return for Western concessions. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which carries out intensive inspections, reports that Iran fully lived up to the agreement. U.S. intelligence agrees.

The topic elicits much debate, unlike another question: Has the U.S. observed the agreement? Apparently not. The JCPOA states that all participants are committed not to impede in any way Iran’s reintegration into the global economy, particularly the global financial system, which the U.S. effectively controls. The U.S. is not permitted to interfere “in areas of trade, technology, finance and energy” and others.

While these topics are not investigated, it appears that Washington has been interfering steadily.

President Trump claims that his effective demolition of the JCPOA is an effort to negotiate an improvement. It’s a worthy objective, easily realized. Any concerns about Iranian nuclear threats can be overcome by establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East, with intensive inspections like those successfully implemented under the JCPOA.

As we have discussed before, this is quite straightforward. Regional support is overwhelming. The Arab states initiated the proposal long ago, and continue to agitate for it, with the strong support of Iran and the former nonaligned countries (G-77, now 132 countries). Europe agrees. In fact, there is only one barrier: the U.S., which regularly vetoes the proposal when it comes up at the review meetings of the Non-Proliferation Treaty countries, most recently by Obama in 2015. The U.S. will not permit inspection of Israel’s enormous nuclear arsenal, or even concede its existence, though it is not in doubt. The reason is simple: under U.S. law (the Symington Amendment), conceding its existence would require terminating all aid to Israel.

So the simple method of ending the alleged concern about an Iranian threat is ruled out and the world must face grim prospects.

Since these topics are scarcely mentionable in the U.S., it is perhaps worthwhile to reiterate another forbidden matter: The U.S. and U.K. have a special responsibility to work to establish a NWFZ in the Middle East. They are formally committed to do so under Article 14 of UN Security Council Resolution 687, which they invoked in their effort to concoct some thin legal basis for their invasion of Iraq, claiming that Iraq had violated the Resolution with nuclear weapons programs. Iraq hadn’t, as they were soon forced to concede. But the U.S. continues to violate the Resolution to the present in order to protect its Israeli client and to allow Washington to violate U.S. law.

Interesting facts, which, unfortunately, are apparently too incendiary to see the light of day.

There’s no point reviewing the years that followed in the hands of the man “sent by God to save Israel from Iran,” in the words of the serious figure of the administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Returning to the original question, there’s quite a lot to contemplate about what the conflict is about. In a phrase, primarily imperial power, damn the consequences.

The term “rogue state” (used widely by the U.S. State Department) refers to the pursuit of state interests without regard to accepted standards of international behavior and the basic principles of international law. Given that definition, isn’t the U.S. a star example of a rogue state?

State Department officials are not the only ones to use the term “rogue state.” It has also been used by prominent American political scientists — referring to the State Department. Not Trump’s, Clinton’s.

During the era between Reagan’s murderous terrorist atrocities in Central America and Bush’s invasion of Iraq, they recognized that for much of the world, the U.S. was “becoming the rogue superpower,” considered “the single greatest external threat to their societies,” and that, “In the eyes of much of the world, in fact, the prime rogue state today is the United States” (Harvard professor of the science of government and government adviser Samuel Huntington; President of the American Political Science Association Robert Jervis. Both in the main establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, 1999, 2001).
After Bush took over, qualifications were dropped. It was asserted as fact that the U.S. “has assumed many of the very features of the ‘rogue nations’ against which it has … done battle.” Others outside the U.S. mainstream might think of different words for the worst crime of the millennium, a textbook example of aggression without credible pretext, the “supreme international crime” of Nuremberg.


We are supposed to revere the U.S. Constitution. We must therefore revere Article VI, which declares that valid treaties shall be “the supreme law of the land.”
And others sometimes express their opinions. Gallup runs regular polls of international opinion. In 2013 (the Obama years), it asked for the first time, which country is the greatest threat to world peace. The U.S. won; no one else even came close. Far behind in second place was Pakistan, presumably inflated by the Indian vote. Iran — the greatest threat to world peace in U.S. discourse — was scarcely mentioned.

That was also the last time the question was asked, though there needn’t have been much concern. It does not seem to have been reported in the U.S.
We might ponder these questions a little further. We are supposed to revere the U.S. Constitution, especially conservatives. We must therefore revere Article VI, which declares that valid treaties shall be “the supreme law of the land” and officials must be bound by them. In the post-war years, by far the most important such treaty is the UN Charter, instituted under U.S. initiative. It bans “the threat or use of force” in international affairs; specifically, the common refrain that “all options are open” with regard to Iran. And all cases of resort to force unless explicitly authorized by the Security Council or in defense against armed attack (a narrowly construed notion) until the Security Council, which must be immediately notified, is able to act to terminate the attack.

We might consider what the world would look like if the U.S. Constitution were considered applicable to the U.S., but let’s put that interesting question aside — not, however, without mentioning that there is a respected profession, called “international lawyers and law professors,” who can learnedly explain that words don’t mean what they mean.

Iraq has struggled since the U.S. invasion in 2003 to maintain a balanced situation with both Washington and Tehran. However, the Iraqi parliament has voted after Suleimani’s assassination to expel all U.S. troops. Is this likely to happen? And, if it does, what impact would it have on future U.S.- Iraq-Iran relations, including the fight against ISIS?
We don’t know whether it will happen. Even if the Iraqi government orders the U.S. to leave, will it do so? It’s not obvious, and as always, public opinion in the U.S., if organized and committed, can help provide an answer.

As for ISIS, Trump has just given it another lease on life, just as he gave it a “get out of jail free” card when he betrayed Syrian Kurds, leaving them to the mercy of their bitter enemies Turkey and Assad after they had fulfilled their function of fighting the war against ISIS (with 11,000 casualties, as compared with half-dozen Americans). ISIS organized at first with jail breaks and is now free to do so again.

ISIS has been given a welcome gift in Iraq as well. The eminent Middle East historian Ervand Abrahamian observes:

The killing of Soleimani … has actually provided a wonderful opportunity for ISIS to recover. There will be a resurgence of ISIS very much in Mosul, northern Iraq. And that, paradoxically, will help Iran, because the Iraqi government will have no choice but to rely more and more on Iran to be able to contain ISIS [which led the defense of Iraq against the ISIS onslaught, under Suleimani’s command] … Trump has pulled out of north Iraq, of the area where ISIS was, pulled the rug out from the Kurds, and now he’s declared war on the pro-Iranian militias. And the Iraqi Army has not been in the past capable of dealing with ISIS. So, the obvious thing is now, the Iraqi government, how are they going to deal with the revival of ISIS? … they will have no choice but to actually rely more and more on Iran. So, Trump has actually undermined his own policy, if he wants to eliminate Iran’s influence in Iraq.

Much as W. Bush did when he invaded Iraq.

We shouldn’t forget, however, that enormous power can recover from muddle-headedness and failure — if the domestic population permits it to.

Putin appears to have outmaneuvered the U.S. not only on Syria, but almost everywhere else on the Middle East front. What is Moscow after in the Middle East, and what’s your explanation for the often infantile diplomacy displayed by the United States in the region and in fact around the world?

One goal, substantially achieved, was to gain control of Syria. Russia entered the conflict in 2015 after advanced weapons provided by the CIA to the mostly jihadi armies had stopped Assad’s forces. Russian aircraft turned the tide, and without concern for the incredible civilian toll, the Russian-backed coalition has taken control of most of the country. Russia is now the external arbiter.

Elsewhere, even among Washington’s Gulf allies, Putin has presented himself, apparently with some success, as the one trustworthy outside actor. Trump’s bull-in-a-China-shop diplomacy (if that is the right word) is winning few friends outside of Israel, on which he is lavishing gifts, and the other members of the reactionary alliance taking shape. Any thought of “soft power” has been pretty much abandoned. But U.S. reserves of hard power are enormous. No other country can impose harsh sanctions at will and compel third parties to honor them, at cost of expulsion from the international financial system. And, of course, no one else has hundreds of military bases around the world or anything like Washington’s advanced military power and ability to resort to force at will and with impunity. The idea of imposing sanctions on the U.S., or anything beyond tepid criticism, borders on ludicrous.

And so, it is likely to remain even as “in the eyes of much of the world, in fact, the prime rogue state today is the United States,” considerably more so than 20 years ago when these words were uttered, unless and until the population compels state power to pursue a different course.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length. 

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER:

C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. His main research interests are in European economic integration, globalization, the political economy of the United States and the deconstruction of neoliberalism’s political and economic project. He is a regular contributor to Truthout as well as a member of Truthout’s Public Intellectual Project. He has published several books and his articles have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news websites. Many of his publications have been translated into several foreign languages, including Croatian, French, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish. He is the author of Optimism Over Despair: Noam Chomsky On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change, an anthology of interviews with Chomsky originally published at Truthout and collected by Haymarket Books.

PHOTO: Antiwar activists protest in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., on January 4, 2020. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images

Trump Threatens War Crimes Against Iran. Congress Must Stop Him.

https://truthout.org/…/trump-threatens-war-crimes-against-i…

News Analysis
War & Peace

Trump Threatens War Crimes Against Iran
Congress Must Stop Him.
by Marjorie Cohn
January 6, 2020
Truthout

[Part of the Series: Human Rights and Global Wrongs] 

PHOTO: Activists demonstrate in support of the impeachment of President Donald Trump and against military action in the Middle East in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2020, in Washington, D.C. Drew Angerer / Getty Images

Trump has already committed the crime of aggression against Iran, and he is now threatening to commit a war crime if he carries through on his January 4 promise to target Iran’s cultural sites. The United States has violated the United Nations Charter’s prohibition on the use of military force. This is the time to raise our voices and demand that our congressional representatives put a halt to Trump’s illegal war-making.

It should be clear to any legal analyst that Donald Trump’s catastrophic decision to order the illegal assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani and Iraqi senior military leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis constituted the crime of aggression and violated both the United Nations Charter and the U.S. War Powers Resolution.

The January 2 drone attacks that killed Suleimani, al-Muhandis and al-Muhandis’s public relations chief were the deadliest escalation of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran since his May 18, 2018, withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. In May 2019, one year after Trump pulled out of the agreement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed U.S. intelligence had concluded that Iranian-sponsored attacks on U.S. military personnel were “imminent.” The New York Times said the administration made that allegation “without evidence” to support it.

Now, seven month later, Team Trump is again invoking the threat of an “imminent” Iranian attack to justify its illegal assassination of Suleimani, and once again, it cites no evidence to substantiate such a threat.

The Drone Assassinations Violated the UN Charter

According to international law, the use of military force by one country against another must comply with the UN Charter. Article 2.3 requires that all member states “settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.” Article 2.4 requires all member states to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

There are only two exceptions to the UN Charter’s prohibition of the use of military force: when a country acts in self-defense or with permission of the Security Council. The drone assassinations were not carried out in self-defense and the Security Council did not sanction them.

The Drone Assassinations Were Not Conducted in Self-Defense

Trump’s drone killings did not constitute lawful self-defense. Article 51 of the UN Charter establishes the inherent right of self-defense in response to an armed attack by another state. Suleimani was a national of Iran. Neither Iran nor Iraq, where the assassination occurred, had mounted an armed attack on the United States before the fatal U.S. drone strikes.

It was Trump who committed the crime of aggression.
After a rocket attack in Kirkuk resulted in the death of a U.S. mercenary, the United States retaliated by launching several airstrikes in Iraq and Syria that killed 24 members of the Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah. In response, members of that militia and their supporters tried to storm the U.S. embassy in Baghdad but there were no casualties.

“The attacks on a US military base in Iraq allegedly by Iraqi-based militias, who were Iraqi non-state actors, do not qualify as an armed attack on the US by Iran,” the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) said in a statement. “Neither does the action by Iraqis who entered the US Embassy in Baghdad, injuring and killing no one, in response to US strikes against these militias (which killed 25 people and injured 55 more) amount to an armed attack by Iran against the US,” the IADL added.

Moreover, Agnès Callamard, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, tweeted that the drone killings were “most [likely] unlawful and violate international human rights law.” Callamard said, “Outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal.” She wrote that “intentionally lethal or potentially lethal force can only be used where strictly necessary to protect against an imminent threat to life.” Thus, Callamard said, the United States would need to demonstrate that the target “constituted an imminent threat to others.” Suleimani’s “past involvement in ‘terrorist’ attacks is not sufficient to make his targeting for killing lawful,” she added. The anticipatory self-defense Trump claimed during his press conference is not likely legal, according to Callamard, since the necessity for the use of self-defense must be “instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation.”

Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who was briefed after the drone killings, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he has seen no intelligence indicating that killing Suleimani would prevent future attacks on the United States. He characterized Pompeo’s claim that killing Suleimani saved lives as “a personal opinion, not an intelligence conclusion.”

Indeed, New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi tweeted that “two US officials who had intelligence briefings after the strike on Suleimani” told her that “the evidence suggesting there was to be an imminent attack on American targets is ‘razor thin’.”

By promising to target Iran’s cultural sites, Trump threatened to commit a war crime.

Likewise, a U.S. government official informed The New York Times that the new intelligence indicated that December 30 was “a normal Monday in the Middle East” and Suleimani’s travels constituted “business as usual.” The official said the intelligence was “thin” and Suleimani’s attack was “not imminent” because it had not been approved by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Assassinations Were Not Authorized by the Security Council

Nor were the drone strikes authorized by the Security Council. The Council has primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security under the UN Charter. Article 39 states, “The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” and decide whether to authorize the use of military force under Article 42.

In fact, it was Trump who committed the crime of aggression.

Trump Committed the Crime of Aggression

Under the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, individuals can perpetrate an act of aggression in two different ways that are pertinent here. The U.S. bombings that killed Suleimani and al-Muhandis constitute aggression under both criteria.

First, aggression is “bombardment by the armed forces of a State against the territory of another State or the use of any weapons by a State against the territory of another State.” U.S. armed forces conducted a bombing attack in Iraq.

Second, aggression is, “The use of armed forces of one State which are within the territory of another State with the agreement of the receiving State, in contravention of the conditions provided for in the agreement or any extension of their presence in such territory beyond the termination of the agreement.”

The repercussions from the U.S. killing of Suleimani may well ignite a lethal conflagration throughout the Middle East.

Iraq and the United States have a joint military agreement governing the stationing of U.S. troops in Iraq. Adel Abdul-Mahdi, Iraq’s acting prime minister, called the U.S. bombing “a flagrant violation of the conditions for the presence of the American forces in Iraq and their role which is supposed to be limited to training Iraqi forces and fighting ISIS [also known as Daesh] within the international coalition forces, under the supervision and approval of the Iraqi government.”

Following the Holocaust, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg called the waging of aggressive war “essentially an evil thing,” adding, “To initiate a war of aggression … is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

The Drone Killings Violated the U.S. War Powers Resolution

The drone killing also violated the War Powers Resolution, which permits the president to introduce U.S. armed forces into hostilities or imminent hostilities only after Congress has declared war, or in “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces,” or when there is “specific statutory authorization,” like an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).

Iran had not attacked the U.S. or its armed forces and Congress had not declared war on Iran or authorized the use of U.S. force against Iranian targets.

National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said the killings were justified by the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq. That AUMF authorized the president “to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to — (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.” Once the U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq and eliminated the government of President Saddam Hussein, the 2002 AUMF license ended.

Trump Is Now Threatening to Commit the War Crime of Targeting Iran’s Cultural Sites

Trump promised in a January 4 tweet to target “52 Iranian sites,” some of which are “at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture” if Iran retaliates against the drone killings.

The Rome Statute makes it a war crime to intentionally direct “attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives.” Cultural sites are not proper military targets. It is also a war crime under the Rome Statute to intentionally direct “attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes [and] historic monuments.”

In addition, the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property prohibits military targeting of cultural sites. Iran has 24 locales on the UN list of cultural world heritage sites.

By promising to target Iran’s cultural sites, Trump threatened to commit a war crime.

Consequences From Suleimani’s Death Are Unimaginable

After the drone attacks, Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, called Suleimani the leader of “the most effective force” in the fight against ISIS and al-Qaida, and called his killing an act of “international terrorism.” Ayatollah Khamenei vowed to take “severe revenge” against those responsible for Suleimani’s death.

Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon, issued a call to all “resistance fighters” to avenge the killing of Suleimani: “Meting out the appropriate punishment to these criminal assassins … will be the responsibility and task of all resistance fighters worldwide,” Nasrallah said.

The repercussions from the U.S. killing of Suleimani, whom Ayatollah Khamenei called a “martyr,” are unimaginable. It may well ignite a lethal conflagration throughout the Middle East.

Suleimani — who was considered the second most powerful figure in Iran after Ayatollah Khamenei — enjoyed nearly folk hero status. As Iran’s top security and intelligence commander, Suleimani “was the architect of nearly every significant operation by Iranian intelligence and military forces over the past two decades, and his death was a staggering blow for Iran at a time of sweeping geopolitical conflict,” according to The New York Times.

The government of Iraq is furious at the killings on its soil without its permission. Acting Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi called the attack “an outrageous breach to Iraqi sovereignty” and “a clear breach of the terms of the American forces’ presence.”

In fact, the Iraqi parliament voted in a nonbinding resolution to ask the government to terminate the presence of the 5,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq and the agreement that permitted the U.S. to send troops to Iraq to fight ISIS. Ironically, Joe Lauria wrote at Consortium News, “Suleimani was one of the men most responsible for defeating ISIS in Iraq and Syria.”

Iran announced on January 5 that it was suspending all of its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal until the United States lifts the punishing sanctions it has imposed on Iran since the U.S. itself pulled out of the deal in 2018. Under the deal, Iran had agreed to restrict its enrichment of uranium and other nuclear activities in return for relief from U.S. sanctions. Iran had been complying with the agreement. Now there are no limitations on Iran’s development of a nuclear weapons program.

The day after the drone strikes, Trump made the Orwellian statement, “We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.” But start a war is just what Trump’s actions have effectively done. It is up to Congress to exercise its constitutional duty to stop this dangerous presidential overreach.

As Yale law professor Oona A. Hathaway warned in her op-ed in The Atlantic, “If Congress fails to effectively press back against this unconstitutional assertion of unilateral authority, it will set a precedent that will put the greatest destructive power the world has ever known in the hands of a single man.”

We must pressure our congressional representatives to put an end to Trump’s illegal war-making. Two resolutions have been introduced in Congress: one by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) to prohibit funding for war with Iran unless Congress gives its approval. The other is co-sponsored by Senators Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) and Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), mandating removal of U.S. troops engaged in hostilities with Iran unless Congress approves. Urge your Congress members to support them. Peace in the Middle East – and indeed worldwide – is at stake.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. 

PHOTO: Activists demonstrate in support of the impeachment of President Donald Trump and against military action in the Middle East in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2020, in Washington, D.C. Drew Angerer / Getty Images

Bernie Sanders Is The Most Progressive, Consistent, and Reliable Antiwar Candidate Running For the U.S. Presidency Today

https://truthout.org/…/bernie-sanders-touts-antiwar-record-…

News Analysis
War & Peace

Bernie Sanders Touts Antiwar Record as Trump Barrels Toward War With Iran

by Mike Ludwig
January 4, 2020
Truthout

PHOTO: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a town hall at the National Motorcycle Museum on January 3, 2020, in Anamosa, Iowa. Stephen Maturen / Getty Images

As Democratic presidential hopefuls scrambled to respond after President Trump ordered the assassination on Thursday of a top Iranian military commander, Sen. Bernie Sanders touted his antiwar voting record on the campaign trail and laid out a vague but bold vision for removing U.S. troops from the Middle East while redirecting overseas military spending to programs that improve life for people back home.

The United States and Iran appear to be at the brink of war, or at least a proxy war, which could sow bloody chaos in Iraq and further conflict in the region. After supporters of an Iran-backed Shia militia besieged the U.S. embassy in Baghdad this week in protest of deadly U.S. airstrikes against the group, Trump ordered a drone strike near Baghdad on Thursday that killed up to 10 people and assassinated Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force and one of the most powerful men in Iran. Iran has vowed to seek “severe revenge.”

The strike has raised fears of war across the globe and divided lawmakers largely along party lines. Republicans generally applauded the killing of a commander accused of targeting U.S. forces during the Iraq war while leading Democrats characterized the move as a dangerous escalation made without approval from Congress. While presidential contenders Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren referred to Suleimani as an enemy of the U.S., they questioned whether Trump had considered the consequences of the strike and the president’s long-term plan for dealing with Iran.

“Now we must deal with the consequences of this action, beginning with the immediate and very real dangers to American citizens in and out of uniform in the Middle East,” said Buttigieg, a former military intelligence officer, in said in a statement. “We must prepare for the impact on regional stability, complex forms of retaliation, and the potential for escalation into war.”

However, the airstrike also exposed divisions among Democrats, whose progressive wing in the House rose in protest just three weeks ago when language that would have prevented Trump from attacking Iran without congressional approval was dropped from a massive, $738 billion military spending authorization package. Republicans were able to win major concessions on the package due to their majority in the Senate, and most House Democrats voted for the package as a year-end deadline loomed.

Sen. Sanders voted against the package, as he has several times in the past. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is jockeying with Sanders for support from progressive voters in the Democratic presidential primaries, came out later against the military spending legislation.

Speaking at a town hall in Iowa on Friday, Sanders reminded voters that he voted against going to war with Iraq in 2002. At the time, he warned that the war would become a bloody and expensive quagmire that would further destabilize the Middle East. Unfortunately, his prediction turned out to be true. Today, Iraq suffers from rampant corruption, unrest, poverty and Iranian interference that spurred riotous protests in recent weeks. War, Sanders said, must be “our last recourse in international relations.”

“All of that suffering, all of that death, all of those huge expenditure of money for what?” Sanders said. “It gives me no pleasure to tell you, that at this moment, we face a similar crossroads fraught with danger. Once again, we must worry about unintended consequences and the impact of unilateral decision making.”

Sanders also laid out a vision for U.S. foreign policy centered around peace and diplomacy, in stark contrast to nearly two decades of military adventurism and endless conflict in the Middle East sparked by the War on Terror under the Bush administration and expanded under the Obama administration. In a world where authoritarianism is rising and nuclear weapons continue to proliferate, Sanders said the U.S. must chart a very different course.

“I believe, in the midst of all that, the role of the United States, as difficult though it may be, must be to work with the international community to end conflicts, to end the threat of war, not to promote war, as President Trump is doing,” Sanders said. “This is how the true power of the United States is shown, and that is how I will use American power as president.”

Responses from rival Democratic candidates were more tempered, reflecting a shrewd political calculation of how centrist voters will respond to news that Trump killed a commander portrayed as the violent mastermind behind Iran’s “expansionist agenda.” Robert C. O’Brien, Trump’s national security adviser, said on Friday that Suleimani was plotting attacks against U.S. service members in Iraq but would not provide any further details about the alleged plans when pressed by reporters.

While Sanders focused on his vote against the Iraq war, Warren called Suleimani a “murderer” responsible for thousands of deaths, including U.S. casualties. However, Warren also called the assassination a “reckless” act that could lead to greater violence, arguing that avoiding another costly war should be the top priority. Sen. Cory Booker, another presidential hopeful, said Trump has “no strategic plan for Iran and has only made the region less stable.”

Biden voted for the 2002 invasion of Iraq and served as vice president in the Obama administration, which signed off on deadly drone strikes, supported the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, intervened in the Syrian civil war and launched the war against ISIS. Biden claimed Suleimani “supported terror and sowed chaos” and “deserved to be brought to justice for his crimes.” But he also said Trump “just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox.”

“I hope the administration has thought through the second- and third-order consequences of the path they have chosen,” Biden said in a statement. “But I fear this administration has not demonstrated at any turn the discipline or long-term vision necessary — and the stakes could not be higher.”

Democrats are largely united in their criticism of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran. Since taking office, Trump has pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration that would have placed strict limits on the country’s nuclear weapons program. The Trump administration has withdrawn from the agreement, slammed Iran with devastating economic sanctions that harm the Iranian population and designated the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group.

As Trump has taunted Iranian leaders on Twitter, a series of tit-for-tat strikes and escalations has taken police, often involving various proxies throughout the region. Earlier this week, the U.S. launched deadly airstrikes against a militia with ties to Iran in Iraq and Syria after accusing the group of rocket attacks against U.S. and coalition forces, including one that killed an American security contractor last week. Supporters of the Shia militia in Iraq responded by besieging the U.S. embassy, and the latest U.S. drone strike killed the militia’s commander along with Suleimani.

The Constitution gives Congress — not the president — the ability to declare war, and the Trump administration has not yet revealed its legal justification for the assassination of a foreign military commander, which Iran clearly views as an act of war. O’Brien said the attack on Suleimani was consistent with the 2002 Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF) that allowed President Bush to invade Iraq int the first place — legislation Biden infamously supported. Observers expect the administration to use a controversial interpretation of the AUMF to justify the assassination to Congress.

Language that would have repealed the 2002 AUMF and required Trump to get permission from Congress before attacking Iran were among the progressive provisions stripped from the military spending authorization bill passed by Congress last month. Democrats used their majority in the House to put these provisions on the table, only to have them dropped after negotiations with the GOP-controlled Senate. A bloc of 41 progressive Democrats and a handful of isolationist Republicans in the House voted against the package in protest.

Biden, Warren, Buttigieg and other Democrats are attempting to draw a contrast between themselves and Trump’s blundering, shoot-from-the-hip approach to foreign policy as the conflict with Iran looms over the 2020 elections. But their statements on the assassination of Suleimani and the very real threat of war with Iran were eerily similar.

Sanders was an original opponent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and has spoken for decades against massive military budgets, and he recently championed an effort in Congress to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen’s brutal civil war. As the conflict with Iran continues, expect to hear him tout this record on the campaign trail. (It should be noted that Sanders has also been criticized by antiwar activists for supporting President Clinton’s intervention in the 1999 war in Kosovo and other U.S. overseas operations.)

Sanders is betting that voters want the violence to end and for their tax dollars funding overseas military operations to be spent on rebuilding infrastructure, fixing the health care system and addressing climate change.

“We must invest in the needs of the American people, not spend trillions more on endless wars,” Sander said.

He is also betting that voters want to see a brand of foreign policymaking that is different than the status-quo, which only the progressive wing of the Democratic party has consistently challenged.

“We must end our involvement in the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, which is now one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes on Earth,” Sanders said on Friday. “And we must bring our troops home from Afghanistan. Instead of provoking more volatility in the region, the United States must use its power, its wealth, and its influence to bring the regional powers to the table to resolve conflicts.”

Sanders did not elaborate on how exactly he would end U.S. military options in the Middle East, though it is clear he favors diplomacy where Trump favors aggression when it comes to Iran — and he is prepared to use his record to set himself apart from Biden and rival Democrats.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mike Ludwig is a staff reporter at Truthout and a contributor to the Truthout anthology, Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? In 2014 and 2017, Project Censored featured Ludwig’s reporting on its annual list of the top 25 independent news stories that the corporate media ignored. Follow him on Twitter: @ludwig_mike.