Analyzing the Legality: Trump's Strike on Soleimani - Free Paper Sample

Introduction

President Donald Trump’s resolution to perform a lethal, targeted strike against an Iranian raised debate amid assassination and warfare. The head of the elite Quds Force in Iran, Qasem Soleimani, was murdered at Baghdad International Airport in an air raid by the US forces. The drone strikes trailed a retro of augmented pressures with Iran. These tensions raised significant queries regarding the legality of the US strike. As a validation of the attacks, Trump’s administration claimed that Soleimani was organizing several raids on the US military centers and diplomats in the Middle East. Also, they stated that the deliberate attacks on US safeties were imminent, and the murder was intended to disrupt the planned events and prevent impending strikes. Trump asserts that the occurrence was not meant to begin a conflict with Iran but to avoid a war. Thus, President Trump had the legal authority to kill Qasem Soleimani in regard to self-defense, international laws, and military force.

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Self-Defense

Self-defense is an appropriate use of force according to the laws of a country. The right of self-defense is an accepted ethical essential both to individuals and states. According to the Associated Press (2020), the right is recognized under customary international law and available to countries in the event of an armed attack. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter has authorized the utilization of self-defense in reaction to armed violence. The imminent strikes offer legitimacy to the killing of Soleimani. According to the Associated Press (2020), the US government, Qasem Soleimani, had been organizing raids on Americans based on his track record as the designer of Iranian invasions overseas. Besides, Soleimani played a substantial role in promoting and supporting numerous of Iraq’s Shiite militias, which have pursued to control Iraqi politics, comprising the violent conquest of Iraq’s prevalent protest association, the Popular Mobilization Forces. Once summoned in by Iraq, the military in the US had the right to protect itself from intimidation. Thus, self-defense enables the administration to perform under preliminary congressional approval for the military force deployment.

Military Force

The president has the legal power to deploy military force abroad according to Article II of the Constitution as long it is protecting the interests of the US interests. The global community has gradually approved the right of states to use military force against any terror nation or group. The utilization of military power is legally acceptable under a comprehensive rule of self-defense. The United States military can uphold peace and stability in areas crucial to US interests and guarantee defense obligations around the globe. For instance, Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), offers the legal power for US military actions against al-Qaeda and associated teams around the universe, comprising those against the State of Islamic in Syria and Iraq (Anderson, 2020). Relying on the law gives a concept that Iraq modeled the threat from Soleimani. Besides, using AUMF, congress had the power to utilize all the necessary and suitable force against Soleimani hence setting no real restrictions. It is substantial to certify that nations correspond with military force to terror strikes and threats from other individuals of countries. Illegalizing this strategy might confine the legal authority to perform some counterterrorism efforts, and could loosen the authority to detain rivals. Therefore, the president possesses constitutional power as the chief commander and executive to utilize force in the state interest.

International Law

Trump administration’s attack on Soleimani was intended to deter future attacks by the Iranians and thus fit under international law as an application of the essential self-defense right. The strike projected to permit the United States to defend itself from third-party raids that would not be enclosed by the laws. According to the American Enterprise Institute (2020), Iran delegitimized international law in its message to the Security Council of the UN, demanding self-defense rights in reply to Trump’s tweets. Trump administration alleged that Soleimani organized imminent strikes against US forces hence lawful under the codes of international law. The utilization of attacks against people planning raids against Americans does not disrupt international law. Thus, international law correspondingly acknowledged the right of self-defense and permitted countries to use force in response to an impending attack.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, President Trump had the legal authority to kill Qasem Soleimani as he aimed at protecting the United States persons, preventing Iran from performing or supporting supplementary strikes against the US interests and forces. The killing of Soleimani was a reasonable exercise of the intrinsic self-defense right. Self-defense encompasses impending armed raids, accepting an extensive, non-temporal notion of proximity. Also, Trump aimed at ending Iran’s planned intensification of threats and attacks against US interests. Soleimani had organized imminent strikes on Americans and US assets and therefore had to be stopped. President Trump’s killing of Soleimani was crucial, as it was the last chance to attack, hence preventing the attack. The president possesses constitutional power as the chief commander and executive to utilize force in the state's interest. Therefore, the United States and other nations have acknowledged that a country can deploy force to avert an imminent strike by an enemy.

References

American Enterprise Institute. (2020, January 23). Killing Soleimani did not violate international law. https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/middle-east/killing-soleimani-did-not-violate-international-law/

Anderson. RS (2020, January 3). Did the president have the domestic legal authority to kill Qassem Soleimani? https://www.lawfareblog.com/did-president-have-domestic-legal-authority-kill-qassem-soleimani

Associated Press. (2020, January 3). Did Donald Trump have the legal authority to order the killing of a top Iranian general? Tampa Bay Times. https://www.tampabay.com/news/nation-world/2020/01/03/legal-basis-for-us-killing-of-iran-general-depends-on-threat/