The legal debates about the killing of Osama bin Laden continue. My previous posts on the subject (here and here, for example) have focused mostly on the jus ad bellum dimension (the UN Charter’s Article 51 and the inherent right of self-defense). But recent discussions at Opinio Juris turn my attention to the jus in […]
Earlier this week Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, pledged to seek a political consensus in Iraq on keeping U.S. troops in the country beyond 2011. According to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) currently in place, the United States is obligated to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by the end of this year. Muqtada […]
Juan Cole writes: Those who are unnecessarily worrying that Obama’s raid was lawless or set a precedent can rest easy; the only precedent is not military, but rather for back-room deals among governments who then put on public Kabuki plays. His statement was responding to the Guardian article from earlier this week, which reported that, […]
I’d like to highlight three significant effects of the bin Laden killing. First, as I noted last week, some people view the operation as precedential. The first one I caught was from Knesset member, Shaul Mofaz, who took the opportunity to call for similar strikes on Hamas leaders. Additionally, as David Karl of the FPA […]
Beware of arguments like those offered in Jonathan Schanzer’s Weekly Standard article, “The Hamas-al Qaeda Alliance.” The article was a response to the statement earlier this week from senior Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who condemned the bin Laden killing. Schanzer essentially attempts to conflate al Qaeda and Hamas, writing that “over the course of two […]
The debate about whether the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden was legal is on. It was legal, says John Bellinger, justified under the same rationale as U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan. Though there’s a pretty fierce debate about the legality of the drones program, thrust to a new level of complexity after Pakistan withdrew […]
One of the most important dimensions of this development is the extent to which Pakistan was involved, both in harboring bin Laden and in executing the operation that killed him. The Pakistan section of Obama’s Sunday night speech jumped out at me: But it’s important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead […]
From ABC News: Syrian army units have clashed with each other over following President Bashar Assad’s orders to crack down on protesters in Daraa, a besieged city at the heart of the uprising, witnesses and human rights groups said Thursday… “There are some battalions that refused to open fire on the people,” Monajed told The […]
I want to highlight a story from a week and a half ago that I don’t think has received the attention it deserves: the decision of Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court to dissolve the National Democratic Party (NDP). As Christian Science Monitor reported: …[M]any in Egypt had feared that the party of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak […]
There may seem like there’s a big debate about NATO’s policy in Libya, especially after last weekend’s State of the Union episode, in which Lindsey Graham advocated a “cut the head of the snake off” policy. John McCain and Joe Lieberman also appeared on the program to make similar statements. But if we actually look […]
As I’ve written of Passover and Chanukah, Easter too is, ultimately, a story about the oppressed becoming the oppressors. One can interpret the Gospels to mean that Jesus advocated violence. After all, he did say “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34), though many disagree on the meaning of the […]
Earlier this week Stephen Walt drew the wrong lesson from the Arab uprisings: So let me get this straight: one former dictator ultimately decides not to unleash massive force against anti-government demonstrators, and eventually leaves power more-or-less peacefully, if not exactly voluntarily. His reward? He winds up in jail (maybe deservedly). Another dictator responds by […]
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