US must learn from lessons of history when it comes to conflict

The US consistently ignores the lessons of its past blunders in conflicts on the world stage — and so repeats them, writes Brahma Chellaney.

IT IS official: US President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama is at war again. After toppling Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi and bombing targets in Somalia and Yemen, Obama has initiated airstrikes in northern Iraq, effectively declaring war on the Islamic State — a decision that will involve infringing on the sovereign, if disintegrating, state of Syria.

In his zeal to intervene, Obama is again disregarding US and international law by seeking approval from neither the US Congress nor the UN Security Council.