U.S. Air Strikes in Syria

On the morning of September 23, 2014, the US and a coalition of Arab dictatorships started to bomb targets inside Syria.



Legal Basis
Domestically the Obama administration claims its strikes in Syria are covered by 2001 laws allowing the president to strike people involved in the September 11 attacks. Internationally, they represented to the UN Security Council a justification of legitimate self-defense. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power offered the explanation "'States must be able to defend themselves' when 'the government of the state where the threat is located is unwilling or unable to prevent the use of its territory for such attacks'"

It is unclear whether USA even attempted to get a UN authorization. Ms. Samantha Power,  US Ambassador to the UN, gave an interview to ABC on that matter, Obama needs no U.N. approval to order airstrikes in Syria.  USA may gotten some cold shoulder at UN from Russia   (which modeled its Ukraine activities on previous USA activities in Libya and Syria, and was unhappy with sanctions as follow-up),   However, it is not known that  UN resolution would fail; what is known is that there were Lavrov-Kerry contacts, and Putin conversation with Ban Ki Moon, shortly before  US-lead air strikes in Syria commenced. Drawback of not having UN authorization is that next time around, somebody else may try to do the same, and  possibly in less justified circumstances.