As four US destroyers steam toward Syria, Obama tries to make up his mind
Obama remained cautious about getting involved in a war that has killed more than 100,000 people and now includes Hezbollah and al-Qaida. He made no mention of the “red line” of chemical weapons use that he marked out for Syrian President Bashar Assad a year ago and that U.S. intelligence says has been breached at least on a small scale several times since.
“If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it — do we have the coalition to make it work?” Obama said Friday. “Those are considerations that we have to take into account.”
Obama conceded in an interview on CNN’s “New Day” program that the episode is a “big event of grave concern” that requires American attention. He said any large-scale chemical weapons usage would affect “core national interests” of the United States and its allies. But nothing he said signaled a shift toward U.S. action.I'm not arguing that the US should interfere in Syria - the time for that is long since past, and fighting Assad would likely benefit al-Qaeda. But since when does the US need a UN mandate to decide whether to take military action? I blame that on George H.W. Bush who was afraid to attack Iraq without a UN mandate. He gave cover to a coward like Obama to hide behind Russian and Chinese vetoes at the UN to avoid taking action.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, chemical weapons, Syria, United Nations Security Council
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:30 PM
2 Comments:
He'll be plotting to put the cannibals in charge. (Nonie Darwish, an Egyptian general's daughter, spoke where I live once and told us that Americans need to let the people themselves work their way out of the pendulum swinging from the military dictators to the sharia dictators. She said just turning over the applecart doesn't make things better and often makes them worse.)
Russian intelligence is still on the ground in Syria and we've got to assume they have the capability to strike with antiship missiles. One Yankont in the side of a destroyer and Obama turns tail.
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