The recent U.S. airstrike on Iran-linked militias in Syria, launched in retribution for rocket attacks on American forces in Iraq, was not the first such attack of this administration, contrary to reports.
Now Vice President Kamala Harris described herself as “deeply concerned about the legal rationale of last night’s strikes” and demanded Trump immediately “lay out a comprehensive strategy in Syria in consultation with Congress.”
Did VP Harris forget that Trump is no longer president? Just goes to show the American people that both President Biden and VP Harris cannot handle their job. They need Trump to step in and handle foreign affairs because they haven’t got a clue to to do it themselves.
The United States is still not at war with Syria, and Syria remains a sovereign country. One might reasonably suppose that fighting Iran-linked militias could heighten tensions with Iran.
The White House sought no congressional permission for the strike, as the Constitution requires. Sure, the usual congressional voices objected—among the Democrats, Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont) and Representatives Ro Khanna (California) and Ilhan Omar (Minnesota); in the GOP, Senator Rand Paul (Kentucky) and Representatives Thomas Massie (Kentucky), Nancy Mace (South Carolina) and Peter Meijer (Michigan)—but so far there’s no suggestion of congressional leadership bestirring themselves for even a toothless rebuke of the dereliction of presidential duty Biden once decried.
The administration, correctly anticipating the failure of basic constitutional accountability, has made the absurd excuse that this was a “defensive” strike to “de-escalate” the situation.
Here is where we see the perverse logic of U.S. foreign policy: U.S. troops are vulnerable to Iran-linked militias because they are occupying Iraq. They are lingering there nearly two decades after an invasion and forcible regime change, which are almost universally agreed to be severe mistakes with grievous unintended consequences.
The U.S. regime change created a power vacuum which permitted the rise of the Islamic State. ISIS now serves as the chief justification for continued U.S. intervention in Iraq, though it is an increasingly open secret that threatening neighboring Iran has become an equal or greater reason for keeping U.S. troops on the ground, where neither American nor the Iraqi people want them to be.
Yet instead of bringing those troops home, where they’d be safe from militias which pose no credible threat to the U.S., the Biden administration has chosen to launch an attack in a third country, Syria, which is an Iranian ally. This is not what defense and de-escalation look like.
If those were the president’s priorities, he would have skipped this recent strike and instead ended the U.S. war in Iraq, depriving the militias of an American target while disentangling us from a fight we cannot win—a fight with no realistic notion of “victory” and or meaningful connection to U.S. security.
Prolonging the U.S. war in Iraq and expanding it to Syria or, God forbid, Iran isn’t necessary to keep Americans secure. It is not ethical. It is not lawful. It is not integrous. It is certainly not defensive—it is not defensible.
So, much for caring for the safety of our American troops!!! Comon Man!!!!
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