WASHINGTON — Alabama’s congressional delegation and their colleagues in the US House of Representatives have unanimously passed a resolution declaring the so called Islamic State, or ISIS, is committing genocide against Christians, Shia Muslims, and other religious minorities in the Middle East. The resolution passed without dissent, 393-0.
“What is happening in Iraq and Syria is a deliberate, systematic targeting of religious and ethnic minorities,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said in a statement. “Today, the House unanimously voted to call ISIS’s atrocities what they are: a genocide. We also will continue to offer our prayers for the persecuted.”
The move by the House is the latest volley in an ongoing foreign policy dispute between Congress and the President.
“There’s a constant tug of war between Congress and the president over who gets to speak for the U.S. government,” explained Cornell Law professor Jens David Ohlin. “It’s an unresolved tension that goes back to the founding of our nation.”
Congress has given the Obama administration until Thursday to determine whether he believes ISIS’s actions fit the legal definition of genocide.
The European Parliament recognized the genocide last month.
Whether or not the State Department calls ISIS’s actions genocide, President Obama has said he will continue to defend Christians and other religious minorities in the region.
“This is something the State Department is continuing to look at but certainly has not in anyway delayed the administration taking aggressive action to protect religious minorities that are being targeted by ISIL, including Christians that we know are being targeted by ISIL in that region of the world,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.
The Obama administration has been deliberating over the ramifications of declaring genocide for weeks. If Secretary of State John Kerry ultimately moves forward with the declaration, it will only be the second time the United States has used the label for an ongoing conflict.
The last time the US declared genocide in an ongoing conflict was in Darfur. Secretary of State Colin Powell used the term when he testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2004, and two years later President Bush doubled the number of international troops in the region.
The legal definition of genocide comes from the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which was adopted in 1948. It has since been ratified by 147 countries, including the US.
The convention created five legal criteria for genocide:
• Killing members of the group;
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
By passing their resolution, the House is saying they want more action against ISIS, but there is only so much they can do without the President and the State Department on their side.
