“Legality” only obscures the real issue, which is why we are hearing so much talk about it, why so many commentators are pretending it matters. To argue about whether or not the US’s attack on Syria would be legal—and to bicker and argue about whether or not the use of chemical weapons is outlawed, or simply breaks an international “norm”—is to maintain the fiction that the world is governed by a system of voluntary contractual obligations, to pretend that—as Hobbes and Locke and contract theory more generally demand—the behavior of international actors is regulated and controlled by a sovereign set of rules and laws that we have all, at some primal originary moment, agreed to be regulated by. Condemning the US for its illegality or observing that Syria is not specifically banned from using chemical weapons demonstrates an unfounded faith in international law’s relevance. But international law only constrains to the extent that its enforcers are able to enforce it. In practice, the actions and dictates of the powerful are what define and describe the regime of “legality” to which everyone else must submit. This is why the United States is rather explicitly admitting that its actions in Syria would or will be face-saving demonstrations of power, rather than instrumental interventions. Everyone knows that the United States cannot control the outcome of the Syrian civil war, even the most hawkish politicians and commentators. Obama and his cabinet understand it best of all. But the outcome of the Syrian civil war is precisely not what this is about; it is about showing that the US has the power to arbitrarily dictate to smaller and weaker nations. Chemical weapons began to matter the moment Obama declared them to be a red line, and after that point, they were all that mattered.

posted 3881 days ago