You have no clue. Desert Storm and the Iraq war both had UN authorization. Remember Colin Powell giving the presentation?
The coalition of the willing was whoever wanted to join in under that umbrella. Furthermore, Both Bush wars had US Congress authorization.
You are letting your hate for everything Russian cloud your judgment. It is not good that Obama overthrew Egypt, attacked Libya, and is now waging war in Syria with no approval at all.
He is literally a dictator at this point, his word becoming law to launch wars. It is new ground for any US president.
If he goes any farther, he’ll be just like your cabana-boy, Putin.
In November 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush, visiting Europe for a NATO summit, declared that "should Iraqi President Saddam Hussein choose not to disarm, the United States will lead a coalition of the willing to disarm him."
This would later become a big issue because the Iraqi parliament would not negotiate a replacement SOFA which would have allowed the US to leave troops in Iraq beyond the 2011 deadline for total troop withdrawal. Many have said that Obama could have negotiated an "executive agreement" with Iraq Prime Minister Maliki, to allow US troops remain there but that is questionable because the Parliament had to authorize it and they were not willing, especially Sadr, who controlled the swing vote in the parliament.
Even if a replacement SOFA could have been negotiated, it would have only delayed the US withdrawal timetable beyond the 2011 final pull-out date, and definately Iraq was not willing to let the US leave troops indefinitely. Today, Iraq welcomes US military aid, assistance, and weapons but are opposed to large numbers of US troops.
Congress issued the Iraq Authority to Use Military Force(AUMF) to Bush, which Obama inherited from Bush, and is the basis of Obama's authority. The AUMF was very broadly written and gave Bush broad authority, which the democrats didn't like and the dems tried to constrict Bush with the Iraq Study Group(2006), the Iraq Assessment Commission(2007), and the Afghanistan Study Group(2008).
Regarding Obama's authority there is an elaborate dance going on. On one hand Obama says he has all the authority that he needs with the Iraq AUMF and the Defense Authorization Act(Libya).
OTOH, Obama says the AUMF constricts him and he wants to trade it in in a more narrow Syria-Iraq AUMF. In the last dem debate, Hillary echoed that saying the Iraq AUMF would give her authority as prez, but the AUMF needed to be updated.
The GOP( and some dems) say Obama has all the authority he needs and are not changing anything because they don't want to possibly constrict a GOP prez that might get elected next year.
So if you look closely, Obama would arm the Syrian Rebels only after Congress approved it(2013). Likewise, Obama was willing to bomb Assad's troops over the chem weapons but only if Congress approved it, which they never did, because it was resolved diplomatically.
Let's keep an eye on this and see if the GOP controlled Congress puts 10-20 thousand US troops on the ground in Syria/Iraq to defeat ISIS. It should be easy to get a UN Mandate from the UN Security Council(US, Russia, UK, China, UK)
You are right. Another point, he could have gotten congress to approve. They've been more then willing under Boehner to kiss Obama's ass on everything else.
But, as for dictatorship, Obama has said more than once that he felt restrained by the constitution or that he didn't realize how limited the office of the president was. That man is pure evil.