As president, Barack Obama claims to be a believer in international law. At least one commentator said that President Obama and his administration seemed more concerned whether what he did complied with international law than domestic law.
But then you come to Aleppo. As The Economist wrote:
“Confronted by Mr Assad’s atrocities, the West has done no more than rehearse diplomatic phrases. By failing to stand up for what it is supposed to believe in [including, inter alia, international law], it has shown that its values are just words – and that they can be ignored with impunity. …
Particular blame falls on Barack Obama. … Throughout his presidency, Mr Obama has sought to move the world from a system where America often acted alone to defend its values, with a few countries like Britain riding shotgun, to one where the job of protecting international norms fell to all countries – because everyone benefited from the rules. Aleppo is a measure of how that policy has failed. As America has stepped back, the vacuum has been filled … by the likes of Russia and Iran ….”
The Washington Post decried “the utter disrespect for the laws of war by the regime of Bashar al-Assad and its Russian and Iranian allies.”
In 2014, President Obama backed off from responding to Syria’s use of chemical weapons, even though he had drawn a red line against them. While Syria gave up some of its chemical weapons, it was a charade, and Syria continues to use chemical weapons, just different types. Because of the Russian and Chinese vetoes in the Security Council, the UN does nothing. The U.S. does nothing, too.
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry refused to veto an UN Security Council resolution declaring the illegality, under international law, of Israeli settlements on the West Bank. But they effectively ignore the illegality of what Syria – and Russia and Iran – are doing in Aleppo. Our U.N. Ambassador, Samantha Power, may talk about the evil that is being done – and the violations of international law that are occurring, but it’s just talk. And people like Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, and other dictators around the world know it.
According to David Miliband, former British Foreign Secretary and now head of the International Rescue Committee, Aleppo represents “the death of respect for international law and the rules of war.” If this continues, “the death of respect for international law and the rules of war” will also represent the foreign policy legacy of Barack Obama.
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