Russian MFA on possible military intervention in the Syrian conflict

The U.S. keeps sending alarming messages regarding a military intervention in the Syrian conflict without the sanction of the UN Security Council. As before, we view such position as fundamentally inconsistent with the international law and thus unacceptable.
The response of the international community and individual states to use of chemical weapons must fit into a strict legal framework. What is more, any response must be supported by the results of a through independent investigation.
Syria is not a party to the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, however, this country is bound by the ban of chemical weapons use under the Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare of 17 June 1925. Non-compliance, if such is to be proved, may be qualified as a violation of the international law. However, the actions proposed by the U.S. in response to the allegations that Syria has breached the Protocol is in itself a grave violation of the principles and norms of the modern world order underpinned by the United Nations Charter, it would amount a military reprisal in defiance of the international law.
According to the international law, the use of force can be sanctioned only in two cases: to exercise the right to individual or collective self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter, or under a UN Security Council Resolution, adopted in line with the provisions made in Article 7 of the UN Charter.
The government of Bashar al-Assad has many times categorically ruled out the possibility of using chemical weapons against their people, and assured the international community of their commitment to the 1925 Protocol. Syria joined this accord without any reservations on its substance, whereas the U.S. conceded to ratify it only reserving the right to use toxic agents against “any enemy state or its allies”, who commit a violation of the Protocol.
It seems that the West is experiencing an acute deficit of ideas in their zeal to make believe that use of force against Syria is lawful. They, in particular, try to stretch the situation to “the responsibility to protect”. And even if one assumes that this concept can be applied to the Syrian events, than anyway, military intervention can only be carried out with the sanction of the UN Security Council (Article 139 of the Final Document of the 2005 World Summit). Now the attempts to resuscitate the notorious concept of “humanitarian intervention”, which never found global recognition, are all the more perplexing.
We are convinced that a possible military operation against Syria without the sanction of the UN SC would have all the attributes of aggression.