“The president may rely on the 2001 A.U.M.F. as statutory authority for the military airstrike operations he is directing” against I.S.I.S., the administration said in a written statement provided to The New York Times and attributed to a senior administration official. “As we have explained, the 2002 Iraq A.U.M.F. would serve as an alternative statutory authority basis on which the president may rely for military action in Iraq. Even so, our position on the 2002 A.U.M.F. hasn’t changed and we’d like to see it repealed.”

Congress based its authorization of the Iraq war on the government of Saddam Hussein’s supposed possession of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. The war evolved into a grinding battle against insurgents before American forces withdrew in 2011, and one of those insurgent groups was Al Qaeda in Iraq, which later renamed itself ISIS.

Legal specialists said the validity of the claim that the Iraq authorization covers ISIS will depend on whether the bombing is a resumption of the old war or the start of a new one. In June, the White House said the Iraq authorization “is no longer used for any U.S. government activities.”

Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor, called the theory “a stretch” and “politically awkward” because, he said, it amounted to a concession that Mr. Obama “was unsuccessful in closing out the conflict.”

BEIRUT - Syrian rebels and jihadists from the Islamic State have agreed a non-aggression pact for the first time in a suburb of the capital Damascus, a monitoring group said on Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the ceasefire deal was agreed between IS and moderate and Islamist rebels in Hajar al-Aswad, south of the capital.

Under the deal, "the two parties will respect a truce until a final solution is found and they promise not to attack each other because they consider the principal enemy to be the Nussayri regime."

Nussayri is a pejorative term for the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/nowsyrialatestnews/563491-syria-rebels-is-in-non-aggression-pact-near-damascus

He added that fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is opposed to the Damascus regime and the Isis fighters, had "more experience" after more than three years of conflict, but were in dire need of outside support. "We are tired and running out of provisions. Some fighters have changed sides and now fight with Isis simply because they are able to provide food, houses for their families and good weapons."

Obama administration officials repeatedly threatened the family of murdered journalist James Foley that they might face criminal charges for supporting terrorism if they paid ransom to the ISIS killers who ultimately beheaded their son, his mother and brother said this week.

"We were told that several times and we took it as a threat and it was appalling," Foley's mother Diane told ABC News in an interview.

She said the warnings over the summer came primarily from a highly decorated military officer serving on the White House's National Security Council staff, which five outraged current and former officials with direct knowledge of the Foley case also recounted to ABC News in recent weeks.

"Three times he intimidated us with that message. We were horrified he would say that. He just told us we would be prosecuted. We knew we had to save our son, we had to try," Diane Foley said.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/government-threatened-foley-family-ransom-payments-mother-slain/story?id=25453963

BEIRUT: Free Syrian Army commanders around Arsal vehemently deny any involvement in recent clashes with the Lebanese security forces, but admit to cooperating with Islamist groups in military operations along the Syrian-Lebanese border.

Often at odds on the Syrian battlefields, the FSA, Nusra Front and ISIS have entered a tenuous allegiance of convenience to fight Assad-aligned forces in the badlands surrounding Arsal.

.....

“We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in ... Qalamoun,” said Bassel Idriss, the commander of an FSA-aligned rebel brigade.

“A very large number of FSA members [in Arsal] have joined ISIS and Nusra,” Abu Fidaa said. “In the end, people want to eat, they want to live, and the Islamic State has everything,” he said.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Sep-08/269883-frustration-drives-arsals-fsa-into-isis-ranks.ashx#ixzz3D80oe0NY
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

“Just two hours ago, allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait.”

—President George H. W. Bush
January 16, 1991

“Good evening. Earlier today, I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq.”

—President Bill Clinton
December 16, 1998

“My fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”

—President George W. Bush
March 19, 2003

“My fellow Americans. Tonight, I want to speak to you about what the United States will do with our friends and allies to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL.”

—President Barack Obama
September 10, 2014

Every American President in the past quarter century has now gone on television during prime time to tell the nation and the world that he has decided to bomb Iraq. Last night was Barack Obama’s turn, and it was a vexing performance. This is a President who has been stubbornly dedicated to extricating the United States as much as possible from its post-9/11 wars and resisting—in the absence of any good options for decisive action—being drawn into Syria’s catastrophic civil war. “The greatest responsibility I have as President is to keep the American people safe,” he said, two years ago. “That’s why I ended the war in Iraq.” And he repeated that boast last night, even as he told a very different story, effectively declaring a new war of staggering scope and complexity against forces of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, and other enemies, in Iraq and Syria—a war that he described as having no end in sight.

MORE: http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/obama-didnt-say