Special Edition: Law and the Soleimani Strike
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2020
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On Friday, the Lawfare Podcast hosted a conversation on the wide-ranging policy implications of the U.S. strike that killed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader Qassem Soleimani and militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, deputy commander of Iraq’s quasi-official Popular Mobilization Forces and leader of the Iraqi militia and PMF Keta’ib Hezbollah.
Today’s special edition episode leaves the policy debate behind to zero-in on the law behind the strike. Law of war and international law experts Scott R. Anderson, Bobby Chesney, Jack Goldsmith, Ashley Deeks and Samuel Moyn join Benjamin Wittes to discuss the domestic and international law surrounding the strike, how the administration might legally justify it, what the president might do next and how Congress might respond.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:18.0 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, |
| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:30.0 | I'm Benjamin Widis and this is the LawFair podcast January 6th, 2020. |
| 0:36.0 | It's another special emergency edition on Friday. |
| 0:41.0 | We did a special edition on the Kusum Sulemani Strike. |
| 0:46.0 | It's implications for the broader Middle East and for US Iranian conflict and relations. |
| 0:52.0 | Today, we're just talking law. |
| 0:55.0 | My voice is gone, but I'm here. |
| 0:58.0 | We have in the jungle studio, Scott Anderson of Brookings and LawFair |
| 1:04.0 | and joining us remotely from far-flung corners on a Skype line are Jack Goldsmith. |
| 1:11.0 | Joining us from Cambridge, Massachusetts, Sam Moyne joining us from Yale Law School, Ashley Deeks. |
| 1:19.0 | Joining us from University of Virginia Law School in Charlottesville, Virginia, |
| 1:24.0 | and of course, the one the only Bobby Chesney joining us from the University of Texas at Austin. |
| 1:31.0 | Thanks to you all for coming on. |
| 1:34.0 | Bobby, I want to start with you. |
| 1:37.0 | You tweeted yesterday that to say that something was legal is not to say that it is a good idea. |
| 1:46.0 | And so I want to start by, first of all, having you flesh that idea out a little bit |
| 1:51.0 | and a little sort of foot stomped the point that we are here not to talk about the merits of whether the strike against Sulemani was wise or a good idea |
... |
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