The United States is unambiguously the imperial aggressor in the Middle East. No actions taken by the US military in the region can be seen as “defensive” given the larger context of decades of unprovoked US violence conducted on the people of the region. The Biden administration’s bombing of Syria, on February 25th, is only the latest incarnation of aggressive acts of war that the US empire attempts to rationalize as “defensive.“
On February 25th, 2021, the United States bombed Syria, targeting (allegedly) Iranian backed Iraqi militias. These militias, incorporated into the Iraqi army as “Popular Mobilization Units,” are alleged to have launched rocket attacks against US bases in Iraq last week that killed a total of one person (a Filipino contractor working with the US military). US Central Command has termed its airstrikes on Syria as a “defensive precision strike” The use of the word “defensive” here should serve to infuriate anyone who cares about accuracy or consistency in labels. Of course, The United States has a magnificent ability to describe all of its imperial violence as defensive, either of US citizens or of some poor downtrodden people in desperate need of a US invasion. The “defense” justification had been employed to justify absurdly offensive actions against countries such as Nicaragua, Grenada, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Panama. Joe Biden’s February 25th bombing of Syria is especially illustrative of this misuse of the word. This should be obvious with just an honest accounting of what occurred:
The United States bombed SYRIA… in response to rocket attacks on US bases in… IRAQ. The US claims (has provided no evidence) that the rocket attacks were committed by groups linked to… IRAN.
The characterization of this violence as defensive seems even more ludicrous when one considers that no US personnel were killed in the rocket attack Biden that claims to have been responding to. That absurdity is amplified upon analysis of the context in which these “defensive” actions were taken.
The Privilege of Starting History Yesterday
I will not dwell on this, but one piece of context that should be immediately apparent, is that the United States is 7,000 miles from Iraq and Syria, and thus is obviously the aggressor when it commits acts of violence in those nations. No person or group in either country is a threat to the US homeland, and thus the defense excuse should be thrown out before any more context is even needed. The burden of proof should rest entirely on those trying to justify US violence halfway around the world. That said, for the sake of argument, I will grant the asinine proposal that violently responding to attacks or threats to US troops in the region qualifies as defensive.
For Americans, history always started yesterday. This makes sense. Erasing all relevant past events and behavior is a surefire way to portray oneself as the victim in any situation. It is this way that the United States is able to view events from the Iran hostage crisis to the 9/11 attacks as situations where the US was subject to unprovoked aggression. While both tragic events, to view them as one sided aggression against a defenseless victim would be to ignore the monumental violence that the US had been engaged in preceding these incidents. The same can be said about the greater context of the recent events concerning the US, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
Can we Please Keep the Bases?
First and foremost, the very presence of the US military in both Iraq and Syria is illegal under international law. In the case of Iraq, after the Joe Biden supported, but flagrantly illegal US invasion in 2003, a huge American military base network was established in country. Even throughout the violence and chaos President Bush created in Iraq, he still desired to maintain the US military presence in the nation. However, in 2008 the Iraqi government decided, after years of mass murder and destruction, to evict the United States military by 2011. As moving day approached, then president Barack Obama still attempted to reach a Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi parliament that would allow US troops to stay in Iraq past 2011. He was denied the request, as part of US demands was the proposal that US personnel could not be tried by Iraqi courts for crimes committed in the country. This point of contention was rendered extremely relevant as these negotiations were occurring after Chelsea Manning’s heroic revelation of the Iraq War logs, which documented thousands of incidents of criminality committed by US soldiers during the occupation. Iraqis were in no mood to see Americans continue to murder their countryman with impunity.
An Opportunity to Look Like the Good Guys
In Syria, the US role was more complex. Similar to Iraq, the nation ruled by strongman Bashar Al Assad had been in the sights of US regime change advocates since at least the early 2000’s, and arguably earlier. Then in 2006, US officials were admonished by Saudi Arabia for empowering its nemesis Iran, by invading Iraq in 2003 and deposing Iran’s perpetual enemy, Saddam Hussein. This left Iran with a Shia majority nation in Iraq as its neighbor, and (in the view of the Gulf States) an opportunity to expand its influence in region. In an effort to correct what they realized to have been the mistake of empowering the Shia state, the Bush administration engaged in what has been termed “The Redirection” by journalist Seymour Hersh. This involved rolling back the Shia influence by undermining Iran and its allies. This would involve attempting to destabilize the Islamic Republic itself, along with its allies in Lebanon and Syria. By 2007 the US stepped up its covert support of the Gulf States and their non-state proxies in an effort to roll back what was being termed, “the Shia Crescent.”
“If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear — never to see them again — you send them to Egypt.”
-Robert Baer, former CIA Agent
This US malevolence toward Syria was certainly not due to the Assad government’s human rights abuses. While some of these allegations of brutality are real, the record shows that the US was all too happy to cooperate with the Syrian government in this barbarism throughout the early years of the war on Terror. This involved renditioning (kidnapping) alleged “terrorists” and sending them to Assad’s security forces to be tortured. (this targeted individuals who had committed no crime). Former CIA agent Robert Baer once said of the practice, “If you want them [alleged US enemy] to be tortured, you send them to Syria.” So when an uprising broke out in 2011 consisting of some Syrians with genuine grievances against the Assad government, it is very fair to assume that the plight of Syrians under Bashar Al Assad was not a driving concern of the US government or its allies. In 2011, even as the Assad government violently subdued the protests, US concern for democracy or human rights was an obvious performance. This lack of concern is further evidenced by the fact as the Arab Spring movement took hold of the Middle East and North Africa, the US supported the brutal dictator Hosni Mubarak in Egypt until right before his disposal, and aided Bahrain in crushing its own internal dissent. The uprising in Syria though, presented an opportunity to destabilize a disobedient government, and it had to be seized on.
Obama was hesitant to directly militarily intervene due to the disaster that had occurred over the last decade in Iraq. Instead, he elected to follow the precedent of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and destabilize Syria in the way that his predecessors had done in Afghanistan. Starting in 2012, Obama’s CIA’s launched its most expensive covert operation since the 1980’s. Through this program, in spirit of Reagan’s operation with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to fund the Afghan Mujahideen, the US and its Gulf state allies poured in billions of dollars of weapons, funding, and training to what were termed “moderate rebels.” As it turned out, by this point the uprising that had consisted of Syrians with genuine grievances had long since been hijacked by violent religious extremists. By 2012, the driving fighting force in this rebellion were Salafi Jihadists, a fact acknowledged by the Defense Intelligence Agency, then Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The proxy war served to further destabilize Syria, with the (not so moderate) rebels responsible for at least 100 thousand Syrian army casualties, numerous war crimes, and attempts at ethnic cleansing. The US and the Gulf States arming the insurgency extended a civil war that could have been over in 2012, and perhaps worst of all, led to the formation of the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria.
Along with the acknowledgment that the driving Syrian uprising was primarily driven by violent jihadists, the 2012 DIA report also predicted the rise of a fundamentalist Islamist state forming in the chaos of the war. ISIS, a group which can credit its roots to the US invasion of Iraq, became a reality in 2014. As the Islamists conquered Syrian and Iraqi territory rapidly, the US had to acknowledge a huge mistake. Secretary of State John Kerry further admitted that the United States knew about the group’s development, but thought the group could be controlled and leveraged to extract concessions from the Al Assad government, one of the primary targets of ISIS violence. However, by 2015, the Russians and Iran had come to the aid of Assad’s forces, and the dictator no longer had any need to negotiate. By that point though, ISIS had grown out of control and was threatening the very government that the US has put in place next door in Iraq.
Back to Iraq Again
In 2014, seeing the consequences of 11 years of destabilization in the Middle East come to fruition, the US returned to Iraq. Differentiating this incursion from the 2003 is that this one occurred at the invitation of the Iraqi government for the purpose of fighting the Islamic State. By 2017 ISIS had mostly been defeated in Iraq and Syria. This was a feat accomplished by a coalition of the Iraqi army, Kurdish militia, and US airpower. Most relevant to the current situation is that from 2014 to 2017, in the effort to defeat ISIS, the US was fighting on the same side as the Iranians, and the exact same Popular Mobilization Units that were targeted by a US air strike on 2/25/2021. As of 2019, the only remaining justification for the US military to have bases or personnel in Iraq was to fight the remnants of ISIS. With the Islamist group largely defeated, the US purpose in the Arab nation was unclear. This fruitless military occupation became even more apparent in early 2020, when after a series of violent exchanges between the US military and indigenous Iraqi forces, Donald Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Subsequently, seeing that the US presence in the nation was becoming a catalyst for a potentially devastating war with Iran on Iraqi soil, the Iraqi Parliament voted once again to evict the American occupiers. Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have ignored this demand that the US leave Iraq, thus violating the nations sovereignty for over a year now. The 1982 UN General Assembly Resolution 37/43 demands a respect for sovereignty, and also insists that people who are occupied by foreign powers are entitled to resist in any way they see fit, including with armed force. Therefore resistance by any Iraqis to the US military occupation is justified. Furthermore, all violence in Iraq should be viewed within the context of the legacy of destruction caused by the US invasion in 2003, along with the ongoing illegal US presence in the region.
The war on ISIS also saw the US military formally invade and occupy Syria. The difference between this incursion and the 2014 re-occupation of Iraq is that the United States was not invited by the Syrian government to conduct military operations on its sovereign territory. Also, although ISIS was far more a threat to Assad’s government than the US, it is unlikely that the Syrian people appreciated that US airpower completely destroyed a major population center in the city of Raqqa in the effort to defeat the Islamic State. US presence in Syria continues for nonsensical reasons, none of which are legal under international law. On top of the occupation, the United States has cut off the Syrian government from their own oil fields, and leveled sanctions on the Syrian people as they try to rebuild in the aftermath of the civil war. The latter is an action that the UN has assured will, and likely has already, had devastating consequences for civilians.
Seven Decades of Aggression Toward Iran
Lastly, in terms of context, it is important to address the fact that the aggression this week was framed as a message or warning to Iran. For those historically inclined, this should ring some alarm bells. The idea that it is the United States that is acting in self defense from Iran is laughable and insulting to the historical record. In brief, the relationship between Iran and the United States for the last 70 years can be characterized by outright US aggression, typically followed by Iranian restraint. Some highlights would include the fact that in 1953, the United States and United Kingdom overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, From there, the US installed a monarch, Reza Shah Pahlavi, who then (fortified with US created and trained secret police) ruled with an iron fist. Upon that monarch’s overthrow in the Islamic Revolution 1979, the US gave support to Iran’s neighbor Iraq, as it invaded Iran and subjected Iranians to brutal warfare that included chemical weapons attacks. Since the end of that war in 1988, the Islamic Republic has been subject to false accusations of possessing nuclear weapons, US backed terrorism, outright assassinations of its major figures within the military and science communities, and perhaps most devastating, economic sanctions. In that time there have been numerous attempts at diplomacy made by Iran, only to be rejected or ignored by the United States. While the US claims that it is Iran that is engaged in aggression, dozens of American bases garrison the borders of the Islamic Republic in half a dozen countries with governments unfriendly to Iran. One only needs to imagine how the US would react if even a single Iranian base was constructed in the Caribbean or Mexico. The US can engage in defensive action against Iran as much as the stereotypical school bully can claim that he is acting defense as he liberates the lunch money from the pockets of one of his smaller classmates.
One only needs to imagine how the US would react if even a single Iranian base was constructed in the Caribbean or Mexico.
Illegal, Hypocritical, but Predictable
The historical context of unrivaled US aggression in the region should be sufficient enough to condemn Biden’s recent act of bellicosity as immoral, illegal, and offensive in nature. However, even absent that context, the recent timeline of events is fairly damning as well. Biden’s strike on Syria violated international law. and highlights the inherent hyporcrisy of the imperial mindset.
Proportionality be Damned!
A Pentagon spokesperson has described Biden’s bombing of Syria as a “proportionate military response.” Using the word, “proportionate” alludes to the fact that the US officials may be aware of rule 14 of International Humanitarian Law which asserts that military operations must be in proportional to any alleged aggression being responded to and to any military advantage gained. The airstrikes in Syria reportedly killed 22 people, presumably members of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces. This was done in response to the allegedly Iranian backed militias attacking bases housing US soldiers in the past weeks, causing a single fatality and several injuries. Biden’s concept of proportionality is clearly a warped one, albeit very much in line with typical US concepts of the word. After all, we are talking about the government that launched a 20 year War on Terror that has killed, maimed and displaced tens of millions of people in response to the September 11th attacks which killed just under 3,000 Americans. Proportionality in war is simply not a principle the US takes seriously.
The bombing of Syria is also a blatant violation of the UN charter which forbids military aggression against sovereign states. Syria, of course, is a sovereign state, a detail that had already been ignored by the US in its current military occupation of the nation. Defenders of this commission of violence against Syria have pointed to Article 51 of the UN Charter which states that, “Nothing shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.” However, only the most creative reading of the Charter could be used to justify this past week’s air strikes on Syria. First of all, this was a response to a rocket attack 7,000 miles from the US homeland. That alone should be disqualifying for anyone using the self defense argument. Also relevant is that even in the aforementioned rocket attack, not a single American was killed. There was a Filipino contractor killed, and albeit tragic, in no way justifies US military action. Self defense would only apply if the US airstrikes repelled ongoing attacks or stopped an imminent one. The February 15 rocket attacks were clearly over and could hardly be described as “ongoing.” At best, the US response was an armed reprisal, illegal under international law, especially if carried out in the disproportional fashion that this recent US act of aggression was. Ironically, if any nation can actually justify violence as self defense, it is obviously Syria, having just had its territory subject to an unprovoked bombing.
“Needless to say, it is unlawful to bomb one country to avoid “causing issues” with another.”
Rutger University Professor of Law Adil Ahmad Haque
Also, far outweighing the convoluted logic US officials are using to justify their violence with Article 51, is the more obvious violation of the UN Charter which occurred with the US disregard for Article Two. This states, “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state” The air strikes on Syrian territory certainly constitute the use of force against the “territorial integrity” of that nation. Adding to the premeditated nature of this violence is the fact that according to the New York Times, the US military chose to bomb Syria rather than Iraq in order to, “avoid diplomatic blowback to the Iraqi government.” Put simply, the Biden team preferred to commit their act of mass murder in one sovereign nation that the US is not at war with, over another nation that the US is not at war with. Rutgers University Professor of Law Adil Ahmad Haque said of that calculation, “Needless to say, it is unlawful to bomb one country to avoid “causing issues” with another.”
On top of that, while the Biden administration has indicated that the strikes on Syria were designed to send a message to Iran. There has been no evidence presented whatsoever that the preceding rocket attacks were actually committed by Iranian backed militias. Furthermore, there has been no evidence presented as to whether the targeted group that Biden bombed is linked to Iran. According to the same NYT piece, “Little is known about the group, including whether it is backed by Iran or related to the organizations that used the facilities the American airstrikes targeted.” Iran has denied any connection to the rocket attacks, which makes sense as it would likely not be in their interest to provoke the US as a potential return to the nuclear deal could be on the horizon. What can be concluded definitively is that the US military, on the command of Joe Biden, bombed and killed 22 people using a perverted definition of self defense. They have proceeded to present no evidence that the group that was bombed presented any threat to the United States or has links to Iran whatsoever.
A Familiar Logic Of Empire
We can temporarily grant legitimacy to one more of their claims of the warmongers in order to further establish the overall absurdity of their point. For the sake of argument, let’s grant the ridiculous premise that militias targeting US personnel, who are illegally stationed 7,000 miles from the US homeland, somehow justifies US airstrikes against a sovereign nation. Accepting such a claim as logically sound would then have me point to other scenarios to see how consistent the defender of US militarism is in their principles.
Can nations like Nicaragua or Vietnam, whose citizens have been victims of mass murder campaigns orchestrated by the Central Intelligence Agency, now launch missiles at any of the many nations in which the CIA operates?
By the logic asserted by the US, any nation can now launch attacks on the territory of other sovereign states so long as they are targeting groups that have attempted violence on the citizens of the attacking nation. Suppose that Iraqis, Yemenis, Afghans, took this US justification for violence to heart and started targeting groups that they deem as threats. There is an organization that has committed uncountable acts of violence against the citizens of these nations in the form of bombing, house raids, murder of civilians at check points, and torture. I refer, of course, to the armed forces of the United States. Should these above mentioned nations now be able to launch missile strikes against any of the dozens of nations where US troops or military infrastructure are located? Can nations like Nicaragua or Vietnam, whose citizens have been victims of mass murder campaigns orchestrated by the Central Intelligence Agency, now launch missiles at any of the many nations in which the CIA operates? How about Yemenis who have had their citizens bombed and starved by the Saudi Arabian military? Should Yemen launch missile attacks on military bases within the United States where many members of the Saudi armed forces receive their training? Obviously US officials would find any of these proposals objectionable, even though they are all inversions of the behavior of the superpower.
It is very clear that Biden is intent on carrying on the hypocritical, inconsistent concept of justice and morality that was exercised by his predecessors. The elite in the American foreign policy establishment operate under the belief that the United States has the right to use violence anywhere on the planet and still characterize their behavior as defensive. Any honest review of the last 30 years reveals that the United States is unequivocally the aggressor in the Middle East and that no military action taken in the region can be described as “defensive.” The mental gymnastics it takes to try to justify US violence is impressive, but logical. Empires do not expand and exert influence over the whole world under the guidance of leaders that are prone to retrospective thinking about the injustice of imperialism. Such a mindset, if taken by enough of the populace, would bring a halt to the entire hegemonic project. Thus, our nation continues this trend of being the “greatest purveyor of violence on earth,” all whilst considering ourselves to be victim, only lashing out in “self defense.” If we want to end the brutality perpetrated by our government, among the first steps should be an honest recounting of US aggression. This would require emphasis on the power dynamic and the disparity in the scale of violence that exists between the United States and the people of the world who are subject to the empire’s barbarism.