[…]  The assassination of General Soleimani also revealed Washington’s continuing assumption of a right to violate the sovereignty of any country in the world if it deems it in its interest to do so. And this time Iraq will surely expel all US troops from Iraq in response to this violation. Not that withdrawal of US troops from this war, ill-conceived from the start, is necessarily a bad thing from the perspective of many, but it surely represents an ignominious end to a failing, pointless, and brutal invasion that Washington had actually believed would swing Iraq over into the “pro-US column” as an ally of the US in the Middle East.

Such naivete further reflects another American deeply cherished assumption that countries with semi-democratic political systems will automatically be pro-American. Has nobody ever heard of national interests?  Or do we believe that US interests globally are now basically coterminous with the global interests of all peoples (deep down)? […]

This latest act of “foreign policy by assassination” will be largely rejected by most in the world. Only a few craven Gulf kings and princes—and Israel—will applaud it. And worst of all, the US has now taken one more giant step towards convincing the world that the US has indeed become a “rogue nation” no longer willing to follow the rules of international law and procedure—and wisdom—that it claims to lead. Fewer and fewer countries anywhere are going to sign up for war or searches for “alliances” that can be turned against Russia or China. Läs artikel

Atter en gang vil Russland drive marineøvelser i internasjonalt farvann utenfor norskekysten. Det samme skjedde under NATO-øvelsen Trident Juncture høsten 2018. Tidligere har slike russiske øvelser bare foregått i Barentshavet. Grunn til det endrede russiske øvingsmønsteret er å finne i norsk utenriks- og forsvarspolitikk.

For å forstå grunnen til endringene må vi gå tilbake til 1949 og baseerklæringen til Sovjetsamveldet. Den sa at i Norge skal det ikke stasjoneres utenlandske baser eller kjernefysiske våpen. Dette er bekreftet ved fotnoter i NATO-erklæringen. Med et godt vernepliktsforsvar hvilte Norges sikkerhet på de to solide søylene, passivt i fred men med god evne til motstand i krig. NATO-medlemskapet var politisk ryggdekning, men heller ikke mer enn det. Forholdet til Sovjetsamveldet var formelt, og fungerte godt. […]

I 2018 holdt sjef for Forsvarets Etterretningstjeneste et ugradert foredrag i Oslo Militære Samfunn. Der sa han overraskende at den største militære trussel mot Norge er i Nord-Atlanterhavet. Deretter kom like overraskende en ny militær langtidsplan for forsvaret, der hovedoppgaven er å sikre en troverdig avskrekking. Inntil da var hovedoppgaven å utgjøre en krigsforebyggende terskel. Leseren bes tenke over betydningen av begrepene: Norge har forlatt å være militært passiv i fred, til å uttale vilje til å være aggressivt. Å gi opp den trygge politikken uten utenlandske baser, men med et godt nasjonalt forsvar har fått følger i form av russisk flåteaktivitet. Läs artikel

Det irakiska parlamentet röstade under söndagen igenom en resolution som kräver att regeringen ska begära att den USA-ledda koalitionen som strider mot IS ska dra tillbaka från Irak.

Det försämrade säkerhetsläget efter att USA natten mot fredagen dödade den iranske toppgeneralenQassem Soleimani har inneburit förändringar i OIR-insatsen, vars högsta befälhavare är den amerikanske generallöjtnanten Pat White.

Arméns operationschef, brigadgeneral Rami Saari, som bär ansvar för de finländska soldaterna i insatsen, säger till HBL att koalitionen har höjt säkerhetsnivån vilket har inneburit att utbildningsverksamheten är avbruten på obestämd tid.

Totalt deltar 80 finländska soldater i operationen.

– De skärpta säkerhetsåtgärderna innebär bland annat att soldaternas möjligheter att röra sig i området har begränsats. Vi har också utfärdat nya direktiv om skyddsutrustning, säger Saari. […]

Rami Saari säger att man inte har fått några motiveringar till varför utbildningen har avbrutits. I stället för att utbilda peshmergasoldater kommer finländarna nu att ägna sig åt andra saker.

– Vi övar oss i att skydda oss mot eventuella attacker och granskar evakueringsplanen. Det gäller att alltid vara förberedd på det värsta, säger Saari.

Rami Saari påpekar att det skärpta säkerhetsläget ändå inte är att betrakta som exceptionellt. Också i somras avbröts utbildningsverksamheten för att sedan återupptas igen.

– Ur vår synvinkel handlar det här om normala variationer, säger Saari.

Även försvarsalliansen Nato har valt att avbryta sina pågående träningsoperationer i Irak, rapporterar nyhetsbyrån AFP. Läs artikel

][…] With the Suleimani killing, Trump has effectively thrown in the towel. The wars he promised to end will continue. America’s enemies list never gets smaller; the body count grows ever larger.

They will do so in no small part because the Congress is pusillanimous and supine, having long since forfeited its constitutionally prescribed authority regarding war. The Democratic members of the Senate and House who whine about not having been consulted or at least notified in advance of the drone attack that took out the Quds commander deserve not a respectful hearing but contempt. Their behavior over the past decade and more in giving presidents a free hand to wage war however they see fit cannot be described as anything but cowardly. It was, after all, President Obama who pioneered the role of assassin-in-chief to which Trump has now laid claim.

More importantly, the U.S.’ Middle East wars will continue due to the intellectual bankruptcy of the foreign policy establishment, which remains wedded to a highly militarized conception of “American global leadership.”[…]

This is an election year. In a serious democracy, the casting of ballots is preceded by a thorough public vetting of the vital issues of the day. The worsening crisis in U.S.-Iranian relations certainly qualifies as one such issue. Yet far surpassing that issue in importance are even larger questions pertaining to the misuse of American military power in the Middle East and to the normalization of war. Läs artikel

The U.S. government justified the strike as an act of self-defense, saying that Qassem Soleimani, the leader of an elite Iranian military and intelligence unit, had been plotting attacks on Americans – an allegation that few analysts seriously doubt, given his track record as the architect of Iranian attacks abroad. […]

”We have carried out the attack on the territory of a state that plainly did not give us permission,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a law professor and an expert on international disputes at the University of Notre Dame. ”The attack was unlawful, the assassination was not justifiable.” The U.S. government doesn’t see it that way, and hasn’t for a long time, under both Democratic and Republican administrations. ”The U.S. government does not believe it is bound by human rights law treaties vis-à-vis our operations overseas,” said Bobby Chesney, the James A. Baker III Chair in the Rule of Law and World Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin. Läs artikel

The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killing on Friday said the President Trump-approved drone strike against Qassim Soleimani, Iran’s top general, violated international human rights law.

In a lengthy Twitter thread, Agnès Callamard said that “outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal,” adding that the US would need to prove the person targeted constituted an imminent threat to others.

She also took issue with the justification for using drones in another country on the basis of self-defense.

“Under customary international law States can take military action if the threatened attack is imminent, no other means would deflect it, and the action is proportionate,” she wrote. Läs artikel

1. Neither the White House nor the Department of Defense (DoD) has offered a legal justification for the killing of general Soleimani. That is probably because it is difficult to find one.
2. If there is a war (armed conflict) between the US and Iran, then Soleimani, as a general, is surely a legitimate target. However, there is no such war.
3. There is, perhaps, a civil war (a non-international armed conflict) in Iraq, in which the US is supporting the Iraqi government. (My impression is, though, that the still ongoing violence in Iraq does not reach the level of civil war.) If so, the US has to act under the authority of the Iraqi government, which invited them. It is not at all clear that the killing is within the bounds of what the Iraqi government has approved. The Iraqi prime minister Abdul-Mahdi has condemned the earlier US attack on a Shia militia on 29 December.
4. Another potential justification is that the US is at war with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), headed by Soleimani, which the US declared to be a terrorist organisation in 2019. However, the US has not declared itself to be at war with all terrorist organisations, but only with those affiliated with al-Qaeda, and this certainly does not apply to the IRGC. Läs artikel