While the Syria strikes were clearly violating international law, using force to uphold the ban on chemical weapons is becoming acceptable in the international community.
The wars in Syria and Iraq are products of secretive decision-making by the executive. Their disastrous consequences are evidence of the need for war powers reform.
East meets east: Russian and Syrian troops.
EPA/Sergei Chirikov
A case study from the height of the Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries illustrates that even the most brutal leaders can choose to compromise for stability.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Moscow, April 12 2017.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
Ivan Kurilla, European University at St Petersburg
Relations between Russia and the United States have reached an all-time low since the US strike on Syria. But Moscow knows that Washington will need its support if tension rises with North Korea.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson head to a meeting in Moscow.
Reuters/Maxim Shemetov
What vastly complicates Western policy in Syria is how to sanction Assad on one hand and deal with Islamic State on the other, without the country unravelling completely.
Inspecting the rubble of a damaged house after a US airstrike in Daraa Al-Balad, Syria, April 7 2017.
Alaa Al-Faqir/Reuters
The recent American airstrike in Syria has created a new norm in international law sanctioning the unilateral use of force to punish those who deploy chemical weapons against their own people.
Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University