Tons of respect to you @BDHerzinger, love your work, but your arguments in @LowyInstitute's Interpreter on why US needs to support transfer of sovereignty of #DiegoGarcia are both misguided & dangerous. Here's why:

1. Sovereignty: It's not our place to say it. US policy is NOT to take positions on sovereignty and for good reason. A great many allies have competing and counter-competing sovereignty claims. Extremely dangerous to take sides vis a vis our allies over sovereignty issues.

Doing so would cause a political crisis w a FVEY and @NATO ally. Our forces there do not alter this. We cannot make judgements on sovereignty based on the presence of US forces. Doing so would undermine our reliability with a great many relationships where US forces are present.

If the UK were itself to lead on this, then the US could certainly make its views known or take a position, but that is not the current UK position, so we must not / cannot do anything that could be construed as undermining an ally's sovereignty.

2. Legality The UK has stated - and with good reason - that an Advisory Opinion is advice provided to the UN General Assembly at its request; it is not a legally binding judgment. And there are many issues with Mauritius' own claims: