Russia urges Syria cooperation
Russia on Friday added its diplomatic weight to demands for a swift probe into an alleged chemical weapons attack that has injected new vigor into calls for international military action in Syria’s civil war.
Russia, which is a close ally of Damascus and its most powerful protector on the international stage, has suggested the opposition staged the attack to discredit the regime. But on Friday, Moscow also called on both sides of the conflict to facilitate an investigation.
The U.S., Britain, France and other countries have pressed for a team of United Nations inspectors already in Syria to be granted immediate access to the sites of Wednesday’s purported gas attack that activists say killed more than 100 people. But in the chaos and violence of Syria’s civil war, safe passage to the eastern Damascus suburbs in question would be difficult.
That was made clear on Friday, as government artillery on the Qassioun plateau overlooking Damascus pounded those suburbs in the heaviest strikes in days.
Associated Press
President Barack Obama on Friday played down the prospect of speedy U.S. intervention in Syria, stressing the difficulty of ordering military action against the Assad government without a strong international coalition and a legal mandate from the United Nations.
While his administration weighed military responses to this week’s claims of a large-scale chemical weapons attack near Damascus, Obama spoke as cautiously as ever 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 which he marked out for Syrian President Bashar Assad a year ago and which 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.”
The reported attack Wednesday, which killed at least 100 people in a Damascus suburb, would amount to the most heinous use of chemical weapons since Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in the town of Halabja two-and-half decades ago.
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.
Even so, U.S. defense officials said Friday the Navy moved an additional warship into the eastern Mediterranean Sea, meaning it now has four destroyers in the region. Each can launch ballistic missiles.
For a year now, Obama has threatened to punish Assad’s regime if it resorted to its chemical weapons arsenal, among the world’s vastest, saying use or even deployment of such weapons of mass destruction constituted a “red line” for him. A U.S. intelligence assessment concluded in June chemical weapons have been used in Syria’s civil war, but Washington has taken no military action against Assad’s forces.
U.S. officials have instead focused on trying to organize a peace conference between the government and opposition. Obama has authorized weapons deliveries to rebel groups, but none is believed to have been sent so far.
In his first comments on Syria since the alleged chemical attack, Obama said the U.S. is still trying to find out what happened.
U.S. confirmation took more than four months after rebels similarly reported chemical attacks in February, though in this instance a U.N. chemical weapons team is already on the ground in Syria. Assad’s government, then as now, has denied the claims as baseless.
Obama also cited the need for the U.S. to be part of a coalition in dealing with Syria. America’s ability by itself to solve the Arab country’s sectarian fighting is “overstated,” he said.
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