As Pentagon planners lay the groundwork for possible airstrikes against Islamic State jihadists in Syria,

U.S. government lawyers are grappling with their own struggle: fashioning a legal argument for justifying
attacks against extremists in a country that has not formally authorized U.S. action.
There has been little legal, or political, controversy surrounding President Barack Obamas decision to
bomb Islamic State fighters and positions across the border in Iraq, where the government pleaded for
American help to counter the Islamic State, previously known as ISIS. Indeed, Pope Francis asked if he
approved of the American air campaign said it was licit to stop the unjust aggression though he did
not endorse airstrikes.
But international legal experts say the United States has an uphill battle convincing many of its own allies
that there is a legal rationale for extending strikes into Syria.
The U.N. Charter offers two major paths to military action. A government is permitted, under Article 51,
to use force against an armed aggressor in self-defense. It can also invite foreign powers to help it defend
itself, as Iraq has done. The U.N. Security Council can, under article 42, authorize a military intervention.
But those roads are blocked for the time being.
The Syrian government has not approved American airpower. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem
warned that Bashar al-Assads regime would consider American military intervention in its territory an act
of aggression unless it coordinates its activities with Damascus a condition Washington has rejected.
And Russia while no friend of the Islamic State may not be inclined to approve a Security Council
resolution granting Washington a blank check in Syria.
"If there are plans to combat Islamic State on the territory of Syria and other countries, it is indispensable
that it is done in cooperation with legitimate authorities [there]," Russias foreign minister Sergei Lavrov
said on Monday. The West will soon have to choose what is more important: a [Syrian] regime change to
satisfy personal antipathies, risking deterioration of the situation beyond any control, or finding pragmatic
ways to unite efforts against the common threat.
Ryan Goodman, professor of international law at New York University and co-editor in chief of the
national security blog, Just Security, said American airstrikes without a Syrian invitation or a U.N. mandate
may prove problematic.
The United States has long argued it has the right to use force on the territory of another state that is
hosting a non-state actor threatening the United States, Goodman said. But a decision to act has been
considered controversial, even by many of Americas allies and the United Nations. Even by U.S. standards
a decision to use force generally requires a finding that the state is unwilling or unable to take action to
confront armed groups on its territory. The strange quality of the current situation is that the Syrians are
saying they are willing and able to cooperate with us.