Obama may go it alone on Syria
Hoped- for coalition crumbles as British say no to military strike.
WASHINGTON — The White House signaled that the United States will act alone in Syria if necessary to protect core national security interests, as a Western coalition that early this week appeared determined to launch a joint military action split at the seams Thursday.
President Barack Obama appeared increasingly isolated after British Prime Minister David Cameron lost a vote in the House of Commons endorsing military action. It was a stunning defeat for a government that days ago called for punishing Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces for apparent use of chemical weapons against rebelheld neighborhoods Aug. 21.
Britain “will not be involved” in any military strikes on Syria, the British defense minister, Philip Hammond, said after the vote, which came after hours of impassioned debate. “I don’t expect that the lack of British participation will stop any action,” he added. He expressed concern that Britain’s “special relationship” with the U. S. would come under strain.
White House officials made clear they won’t be constrained, however.
“As we’ve said, President Obama’s decision- making will be guided by what is in the best interests of the United States,” said Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for theNational Security Council. “He believes that there are core interests at stake for the United States and that countries who violate international norms regarding chemical weapons need to be held accountable.”
But as the Pentagon moved a fifth destroyer armed with cruise missiles into the eastern Mediterranean for possible action against Syria, other major allies also appeared to pull back.
French President Francois Hollande, whose government was the first Western advocate for a military response, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who also had offered support, shifted course and called for delaying any military operation until the United Nations Security Council can review evidence collected by chemical weapons experts now in Syria.
The 20- member team is set to leave Damascus on Saturday, but the final report may be days or weeks away. The group will try to determine whether sarin nerve gas or other toxic chemical agents were used but not who used them.
Administration officials said Obama has no interest in getting bogged down at the U. N., especially because Russia almost certainly would block any U. N. resolution condemning Syria, a close ally. It is likely China also would object.
“We will make our own decisions, with our own timelines,” said Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman. Shesaid the administration has not decided what course it will take.
Josh Earnest, a deputy White House spokesman, said Obama is “interested in engaging with the global international community” as he considers whether to order punitive missile strikes. “Wewant to continue to keep our allies in the loop as the president considers a decision about a response.”
The fracturing of the coalition was driven, in part, by growing questions about the intelligence the White House has cited but has yet to make public. At the heart of the objections are countries’ worries that the United States is trying to talk allies into joining an unwise foreign intervention.
“It didn’t take long for the ghosts of Iraq to reappear,” said Joel Rubin, a former State Department official now with the Ploughshares Fund, an arms control advocacy group in Washington. “It looks now like they’re really bogging everything down.”
Harf denied the Obama administration is hyping the intelligence. She would not discuss the evidence but rejected the Iraq analogy.
“In Iraq, the U. S. was trying to prove the existence of weapons of mass destruction,” she said at the State Department. “In Syria, we know that chemical weapons not only exist, but … that they were used on Aug. 21. So that’s not in question. That’s undeniable.”
In London, the Joint Intelligence Committee released a letter early Thursday concluding that it was “highly likely” that Assad’s government was responsible, citing “a limited but growing body of intelligence.”
After reviewing the intelligence, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D- Calif., who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the evidence “points to” Assad’s involvement.
Obama spoke by phone to Sen. Mitch Mc Connell, RKy., the minority leader, and House Speaker John Boehner, R- Ohio. Boehner urged the president to provide Congress and the public a “legal justification for any military strike, the policy and precedent such a response would set, and the objectives and strategy for any potential action,” said Brendan Buck, Boehner’s spokesman.