America must be consistent. It cannot pick and choose when to follow international law | Peter Beinart

Remaking borders by force violates international law. So why does the US recognise Israel and Morocco's respective illegal annexations of the Golan Heights and Western Sahara?

Last December, as Russian forces encircled Ukraine, the Biden administration and its allies delivered a stark warning to Vladimir Putin: Any use of force to change borders is strictly prohibited under international law." In January, as Russian troops massed even in even greater numbers, Secretary of State Antony Blinken added that the inviolability of frontiers" was among the guiding principles for international behavior." Last month, after Russia's parliament recognized the independence of two self-declared republics Moscow had cleaved from eastern Ukraine, Blinken called this infringement upon Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity" a gross violation of international law."

All this is indisputably true. Remaking borders by force violates a core principle of international law. Which is why the Biden administration must do more than resist Russia's aggression in Ukraine. It must stop violating that principle itself.

Peter Beinart is professor of journalism and political science at The Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York. He is also editor-at-large of Jewish Currents and writes The Beinart Notebook, a weekly newsletter.