Obama gets ‘time, space’ on Syria issue
THE US Senate is putting off consideration of a resolution authorising strikes against Syria to give President Barack Obama the “time and space” to pursue diplomacy with Russia, Senate majority leader Harry Reid said.
Mr Obama has postponed a decision on military action against Syria, sparing himself a possible political defeat at home and plunging the US into potentially protracted negotiations with a global rival.
After telling the nation 10 days ago he would ask Congress to authorise the use of military force, Mr Obama reversed course last night in a nationally televised address and said he would pursue a proposal by Russia to have Syria surrender its stockpiles of chemical arms to international authorities.
The diplomatic initiative prompted Senate leaders to put on hold consideration of a use-offorce resolution, which legislators said would be a difficult vote with an uncertain outcome in a chamber where more than a third of the members were against authorisation or leaning toward opposition before the president’s speech.
“Leaders in Damascus and Moscow should understand that Congress will be watching these negotiations very closely,” Mr Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, said yesterday. If there was a sign it may be a “ploy,” the Senate would resume plans to authorise military strikes, he said.
“I would be very surprised if we do take action or that a vote is ever required on this,” said representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a member of the House Republican leadership. “I don’t think opinion in Congress would change. Before the Russian offer, there wasn’t going to be support.”
Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today in Geneva, and Obama said he would continue talking with President Vladimir Putin. The US, UK and France will work together at the United Nations, where there is discord over how tough language would be in a council resolution.
Russia has given the US a chemical weapons proposal for discussion by Mr Kerry and Mr Lavrov, according to a Russian official who asked not to be identified discussing internal developments.
In pursuing the Russian initiative, Mr Obama is casting his lot with Mr Putin, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s primary patron, who has emerged as Mr Obama’s chief international antagonist in his second term.
“It’s too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that the Assad regime keeps its commitments,” Mr Obama said in remarks from the East Room of the White House on Tuesday.
The initiative “has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force, particularly because Russia is one of Mr Assad’s strongest allies”.
It’s too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any deal must verify that the Assad regime keeps its commitments
Democratic senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, co-chairman of the Senate Caucus on Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism, said that the Russian proposal had “some potential,” though his initial reaction was to doubt it given the “lack of credibility on the part of the Russians and the Syrian regime”.
“But let’s not kid ourselves — the chances of this happening are a lot less than 50%,” he said yesterday on CNN.
“I have resisted calls for military action because we cannot resolve someone else’s civil war through force, particularly after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons “profoundly changed” that stance.
The president spent much of his 16-minute address repeating his arguments justifying the use of force to deter any future use of chemical weapons, even as he said the US can’t be “the world’s policeman”.
“When, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act,” he said.
Mr Obama emphasised his scepticism about whether Syria would comply and said he has instructed US military commanders to be ready to strike at a moment’s notice.