The corruptions of being the world's policeman: Obama's Syria blunder demonstrates the folly of playing international sheriff.

• Author: Welch, Matt
• Position: From the Top

In making the case for a Syrian war to the Senate on September 3, Secretary of State John Kerry made so many bad arguments--including insisting repeatedly that the proposed bombing campaign would in fact not be a war, at least "in the classic sense"--that most viewers probably overlooked a telling exchange with Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), who has been a consistent skeptic of the national security state.

"To the international community we're saying once again the United States will be the world's policeman," Udall observed. "You break a law, and the United States will step in. We are on shaky international legal foundations with this potential strike."

This was as true as it gets. Enforcement of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which the U.S. accuses Syria of violating, is left up to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which in turn can only get involved upon referral from the United Nations Security Council. Any U.S. bombing in the absence of specific U.N. authorization would be in direct violation of the U.N. Charter, which forthrightly prohibits the "threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." There's nothing in the rules about the U.S. lobbing Tomahawk missiles into the fray on its own recognizance.

But acknowledging such truths out loud would go right to the heart of the contradiction underpinning America's self-appointed role as global cop. We want to believe that we are acting in the noble, moral cause of protecting civilizational norms against barbarism. But we will freely violate international law in the process, while raining flesh-ripping death from the sky, including on innocents.

So John Kerry responded to Udall's query not with sober reflection on America's thankless role, or even a direct answer about the legality of its actions, but rather with an evasion.

"You raised the question of, doesn't this make the United States the policeman of the world," the secretary intoned, voice rising in umbrage. "No. It makes the United States a multilateral partner in an effort that the world, 184 nations strong, has accepted the responsibility for."

In reality, America is a "multilateral partner" all the way up to the moment that other countries don't do what we say and/or attempt to subject Washington to the same rules everyone else has to follow. Take the very Chemical Weapons Convention that Kerry and President Barack Obama have been citing as their casus belli: The treaty...