A group of influential Republican senators has sent a letter to International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan, warning him not to issue international arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, and threatening him with “severe sanctions” if he does so.
In a terse, one-page letter obtained exclusively by Zeteo, and signed by 12 GOP senators, including Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Florida’s Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz of Texas, Khan is informed that any attempt by the ICC to hold Netanyahu and his colleagues to account for their actions in Gaza will be interpreted “not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States.”
“Target Israel and we will target you,” the senators tell Khan, adding that they will “sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States.”
In their letter, the dozen Republican senators remind Khan that the U.S. “demonstrated in the American Service-Members’ Protection Act the lengths to which we will go to protect [its] sovereignty.”
The ASPA, signed into law by George W. Bush in 2002, has since become widely known as “The Hague Invasion Act” because it authorizes the U.S. president “to use all means necessary and appropriate” to bring about the release not just of U.S. persons but also allies who are imprisoned or detained by the ICC.
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I think shooting foreign troops would be seen as an escalation. And I don’t think Europe wants to see where that will go.
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I’d say the US will definitely cease its aggression when the first French nuke hits an aircraft carrier, or similar target. The French do commit to warning shots in their first-strike doctrine.
…unlikely to come to that point, though, Europe can stalemate the US by conventional means with the current arms levels, they’d never get boots on the ground. It’s also not like we’d need nukes to sink those carriers. Washington is then welcome to seethe at an ocean’s distance.
France nuking American Aircraft Carriers?!?! At that point there wouldn’t be any need for “boots on the ground” because France would be nothing but glass and smoking craters.
That scenario is literally the end of the world.
Then don’t threaten France, or its vital interests (which definitely include the Netherlands) with invasion. Simple as that. As de Gaulle himself said, you can switch around nationalities yourself:
France won’t be glass and craters for the precise reason that the US would be glass and craters if they don’t cease their aggression. Ceasing aggression, France will see no need to first strike, crisis averted. Simple as that.
It might come as a surprise for Americans that there’s smaller countries that can’t be bullied around by military force but trust me the French are dead serious about their nuclear first strike doctrine. Which the US is well-advised to also take seriously so that the French won’t need to fire even a warning shot. They’d also prefer not to.
The warning shot, btw, won’t come via ICBM so that it’s clear that it’s not an actual extinction-level attack. The French have cruise missiles specifically for that purpose, until they explode they look like any other cruise missile you’d
lobthrow at a carrier.Oh we’re dumb enough. Trump redrew a hurricane prediction with sharpie on live national television. These are not rational people and that’s always been the downfall of MAD as a theory. It requires rational actors.