Administration lawyers are considering whether or not a 2001 authorization for use of military force (AUMF) can be applied nearly a decade-and-a-half later to a foreign government that had nothing to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks: Syria.
“Let me take that question just to make sure that we get you the precise legal answer,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday, responding to a reporter’s inquiry about the 2001 AUMF, and whether or not it justifies airstrikes against government forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The US military is already using the post-9/11 war authorization within Syria, conducting airstrikes since last summer against rebel forces aligned with al Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIL).
Those military thrusts have put the Pentagon and the Assad regime temporarily on the same side of the battle lines, despite long-running demands from the Obama administration that the ruthless Syrian leader must step down from power in order for there to be a political solution to the civil war in his country that has killed over 200,000 people.
But with the introduction to the battlefield of so-called moderate rebel forces newly equipped and trained by the US military, the likelihood of direct confrontation between the Pentagon and the Assad government increases.
The US-backed opposition will be deployed within months, and is tasked with a multi-pronged mission. During a Senate hearing in May, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter described it as a “third force” that will combat ISIL and Assad forces, and “create an environment in which the Syrian people can live in peace, which they deserve.”
Days later, during a briefing with reporters, Carter said the US military has a “responsibility” to protect those forces should they come under attack, including assault from “regime forces.”
“We have not decided yet in detail how we would exercise that responsibility but we have acknowledged that we have that responsibility,” the Pentagon chief said.
When the administration presented a draft AUMF to Congress to serve as a new authority for the conflict against ISIL, it did not include provisions to target Syrian government forces.
That omission drew the ire of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who criticized the draft’s language for being unable to “protect these same groups against Assad’s barrel bombs.”
Warhawk Senators like John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have long called for direct US military action to weaken Syrian government forces.
Stretching the 2001 AUMF to cover such action against Assad would, however, be a bridge too far for other lawmakers and organizations that are concern that the law is stretched too thin already—now being interpreted to cover far-flung terror groups in Africa like Boko Haram.
Upon news this month that President Obama was dispatching 450 more US troops to Iraq to assist in the fight against ISIL, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) again called for Congress to consider a brand new ISIL-oriented AUMF.
She lamented, however, that momentum in Congress to clarify the executive’s war powers in this new conflict has stalled—lawmakers aren’t even debating the issue anymore.
“We don’t discuss it on the floor of the House,” Pelosi told reporters last week.
