Syria: The case for inaction

[Fuchs]

This is about enforcing the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons which is especially important when a country which has refused to sign on to the convention uses these weapons on a repeated and escalating basis.

Oh, so violation of a treaty (which wasn't even ratified) outlaws a country and means others are entitled to bomb it without UNSC approval? This was news to me.

United States: Welcome, you're now the free fire zone for all NATO members. You have violated the North Atlantic Treaty repeatedly, brazenly, arrogantly, and you need to be taught a lesson.

United States: Welcome, you're now the free fire zone for all countries in the world. You have violated the United Nations charter repeatedly, brazenly, arrogantly, and you need to be taught a lesson.


Treaties don't become universally relevant only because most countries signed them. A whopping 56 countries did not sign the 1925 treaty.
Now if treaties became universally relevant once most instead of all countries sign and ratify, and if this would mean a violation would entitle other countries to bomb the offender, then the United States would need to agree that it not extraditing a suspect to the International Criminal Court authorizes Venezuela to bomb the United States, right?


Hypocrisy stinks, but the fact that people cannot even recognize it is ever-amazing to me.


JMA: Syria has a right to sovereignty, and this has been recognised plenty times. It did not give up its right to sovereignty or its right to not face aggression by its accession to the 1925 Geneva Convention. Feel free to look at the text, but I tell you in advance: No country signs off such a clause except when it lost a war or is about to do so.

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Let's face it: The Syria attack thing is not about enforcing international law. The United States are almost the very last country in the world with any kind of credibility with regards to international law.
The U.S. Congress doesn't want to pass laws or confirm nominees, so Obama can't do much domestically. U.S.presidents have some freedom of action in foreign policy and the use of the military, though. So he looked to the distance and saw a conflict where he could pose a bit. This is all about meddling, nothing about enforcing rules.
If it was about rules, the United States would have allowed the UNSC to condemn and punish Israel for air attacks on Syria months ago, for this was an actually illegal aggression under the Charter of the United Nations. Same for air attacks on Sudan.
No, they waited till they have a cover story for violently meddling against someone they dislike anyway and being rather disingenuous and lacking domestic support, they could think of little more than bombardment.

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By the way; I've seen some website keeping track of what congress members signalled, and it seems Obama is not going to get green light from congress.

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John T Fishel:

The convention does not include any clause about its own enforcement and thus lends no legitimacy to its enforcement if said enforcement is in violation with any other obligation.
http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/sbtwc/keytext/genprot.htm
http://www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Bi...s_Protocol.pdf