President Obama finally decided to pull the trigger and approve intensive airstrikes on key ISIS positions in Syria. Several Sunni Arab countries participated. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Obama administration is also getting what it needs from Turkey, but did not elaborate.
"Once again, it must be clear to anyone who would plot against America and try to do Americans harm that we will not tolerate safe havens for terrorists who threaten our people," President Obama said in remarks delivered from the White House.
"The strength of this coalition makes it clear to the world that this is not America's fight alone." At the United Nations, during a day devoted to a global climate change summit, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon commented on the airstrikes in Syria.
He focused his remarks on the immediate threat to international peace and security posed by ISIS and his concern that civilians be protected from harm during the airstrikes as much as possible. Tellingly he did not raise any international law concerns that the attacks were launched without the Syrian government's consent or Security Council authorization. That was the right course for the Secretary General to take. The Security Council does not have exclusive domain to legitimize collective actions taken in self-defense. Given ISIS’s current threat to Iraq, which had asked for U.S. military assistance to repel ISIS’s attacks, and ISIS’s presence across Iraq’s border in Syria where it was basing its operations, the inherent right to self-defense – recognized in Article 51 of the UN Charter – is operative in this situation.
The Secretary General noted that the affected territory was not under the Syrian regime's control. This fact is relevant because it would tend to obviate the need for Syrian government consent to action directed at a clear and present threat to the region and international and peace and security that the Syrian government is completely unable to deal with itself. Ban also noted that the Syrian government had been informed the strikes were about to take place beforehand, although the U.S. has not confirmed that this was the case.
Neither Russia nor the Syrian regime have as yet raised any fuss regarding the strikes. There were no calls for an emergency session of the Security Council to condemn the United States. In fact, Syria appears to have welcomed the action against the terrorists. According to Syrian state media reports, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he supports any international efforts to combat "terrorism" in Syria. He knows he will be the beneficiary of actions taken to weaken one of his fiercest adversaries.
Russia is most likely waiting to use the strikes as propaganda points when challenged again by the U.S. regarding Russia's own actions in Ukraine.
While indirectly propping up Assad and giving Russia some talking points are downsides to the airstrikes approved by President Obama, they are a small price to pay for finally taking the fight to ISIS wherever these barbaric jihadists choose to operate.
