[Obama’s] personal authority, rather than views of the United States as such, is the key source of inhibition by NGOs, UN representatives, and others. The political calculation for the international community in this kind of debate is simple: attacking the United States increases one’s global legitimacy, while attacking Obama, at least at this point, does not.
Signals by the administration in the other direction will likely embolden legal action against American officials once this administration is over. Signals from the international community, if not vigorously contested and rejected by the Obama administration, that the international community will pursue such actions down the road will have pretty much the same effect today: to disincentivate American intelligence officials from doing anything that they are not 100% sure will be legally protected now and in the future.
It is crucial, in my view, that the administration put on the record, or be pushed into putting on the record, a plain and broad statement that its drone policy is legal, not on narrow grounds of an armed conflict in Afghanistan spilling over into Pakistan, but on broader grounds of self-defense. It would be consistent with what the President said at West Point, after all, in referring to action in Yemen and Somalia or other places in order to deny Al Qaeda safe haven wherever it might go.
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