Maxwell School News

"This is an escalation for sure but retaliation, revenge or reprisals are unlawful at international law, not that Iran abides by international law," says William C. Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs. "The risks are that the U.S. will play along and some escalatory act will be disproportionate to the circumstances, leading to something far worse," he adds.

"We would hope now is that cooler heads will prevail within the Trump administration that can reason with the President that the time is now for negotiations rather than further escalation," says Osamah Khalil, associate professor of history.

The killings of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Deputy Chairman of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units, "were a dangerous and ill-advised escalation by the United States," Osamah Khalil, associate professor of history and Middle East expert, told USA Today. " Khalil also talked to other outlets about this development, stating that "Their deaths will make it more difficult to resolve the ongoing tensions between Washington and Tehran and will only destabilize Iraq further."

Professor Emeritus William C. Banks said congressional action regarding FISA could further insert politics into a process that should be free of it. "All the politics that surrounded the headlines of this story would rear their ugly head again," he says. "It could end up with more amendments to FISA that do more harm than good."

"Contamination from the president’s approach is amplified when his judgment is largely shaped by television commentators and his decision announced by tweet," write University Professor Sean O'Keefe and his co-author. "No one is as well positioned to balance the exigencies of combat and the demands of law and ethics as a panel of fellow sailors, Marines, airmen or soldiers," they add.

"Even among his customary allies and supporters, there has been pretty blunt criticism, not only of the policy choice but of the way it was done and the way it is continuing to be done," says Grant Reeher, professor of political science, of the troop withdrawal in Syria.

"The most the Israelis are willing to offer does not meet the minimum demands of the Palestinians. This includes a viable, independent state with sovereignty over its borders and resources," says Osamah Khalil, associate professor of history.

Mona Bhan, associate professor of anthropology and Ford-Maxwell Professor of South Asian Studies, says that the resistance to India's revocation of Articles 370 and 35A "depends of course on this massive military influx of the Indian forces into Kashmir territory and how that's going to pen out, how people are going to be able to navigate this new terrain of intense militarization."

"Since Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón declared the start of the Drug War in 2006, both the U.S. and Mexico’s security forces have aggressively pursued what is referred to as the kingpin strategy: they go after the 'head’ with the intent of weakening the ‘body,’" says Gladys McCormick, associate professor of history and Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations.

"In a war, you can hurt certain areas of a country, but you usually don't grenade the entire economy. Whereas with economic warfare, you truly can," says Corri Zoli, director of research in the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism. 

"If the White House game plan was based on the premise that imposing more robust sanctions would cause a popular uprising by the Iranian people to bring down the regime, it badly miscalculated," writes Professor of Political Science Mehrzad Boroujerdi. "Instead, the nuclear withdrawal convinced Tehran that ill will should beget ill will."

"The Iranians do have an appetite for negotiating, but I think what is holding things up right now—and that’s the part that the Trump administration perhaps is not really comprehending—is they have to save face," says Professor of Political Science Mehrzad Boroujerdi.

"If the U.S., under Trump or a successor, continues to take Japan's support for granted while ignoring Japan's interests, the U.S. grand strategy for the Indo-Pacific, which depends so heavily on allied support for bases and operations, could become increasingly untenable," writes University Professor James Steinberg.

Established in 2005 by Congress, the IC CAE program is designed to increase the number of culturally and ethnically diverse, multi-disciplinary professionals in the intelligence community. The program "will leverage contributions from virtually all the schools and colleges at Syracuse University, and provide additional career opportunities for our students,” says Vice Admiral Robert Murrett (retired), professor of practice of public administration and international affairs.