U.S. invokes Iraq’s defense in legal justification for Syria strikes

Somini Sengupta and Charlie Savage write for the New York Times:

The United States said on Tuesday that the American-led airstrikes against the Islamic State — carried out in Syria without seeking the permission of the Syrian government or the United Nations Security Council — were legal because they were done in defense of Iraq. The American ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, officially informed the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, of the legal justification in a letter, asserting that the airstrikes had been carried out under a fundamental principle in the United Nations Charter. That principle gives countries the right to defend themselves, including using force on another country’s territory when that country is unwilling or unable to address it.

International law generally prohibits using force on the sovereign territory of another country without its permission or authorization from the United Nations, except as a matter of self-defense. American intelligence agencies have concluded that the Islamic State poses no immediate threat to the United States, though they say that another militant group targeted in the strikes, Khorasan, does pose a threat.