The “Legal Grounds” of American Counterterrorism Policy Against the Islamic State: The Case of Smith v. Obama and Trump

الملخص

Since 9/11 events, many controversial questions have been raised over the constitutionality of American counterterrorism policies. Some American politicians criticized the U.S. intervention in the crisis of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS). By examining Smith v. Trump case, initially named Smith v. Obama, this paper aims at discussing whether these policies constitute a legal fight against ISIS during the Obama and Trump administrations. In an attempt to achieve that, a document-based method is approached by analyzing legal and historical literature. The research’s results suggest that the absence of legal challenges to similar strategies in former administration precedents, mainly the War on Terror, weakens the legal arguments that condemn counterterrorism practices against ISIS in the Obama and Trump administrations.