The United States has concluded that the Syrian government used chemical weapons in its fight against opposition forces, and President Obama has authorized direct U.S. military support to the rebels, the White House said Thursday.
“The president has said that the use of chemical weapons would change his calculus, and it has,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser. Rhodes said U.S. intelligence had determined with “high certainty” that Syrian government forces have “used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year.”
There are no details as to what expanded military support means. President Obama has not committed ground troops. According to one poll, 24% of Americans do not want American involvement.
Syria’s outgunned rebels have issued urgent appeals this week for antitank and antiaircraft weaponry to counter a government offensive that is backed by Hezbollah fighters and Iranian militia forces.
“Suffice it to say this is going to be different in both scope and scale,” Rhodes said of the new assistance. Obama said last year that confirmation of chemical weapons use would cross a “red line” for the United States.
Might this be a “wag the dog” scenario to divert attention from the IRS and NSA? I certainly cannot see any interest of the US served by getting involved in Syria. Both sides in this civil war appear to be mortal enemies of the US. But it does divert attention in the media from the multitude of scandals in the Obama administration.
I think there are humanitarian issues that Americans just don’t turn their backs on. Sarin gas was being used.
I doubt that it has any diversionary value, Kelly. This issue has been on the front burner for months and the pressure on Obama to intervene has largely come from the right side of the spectrum. My guess is that the trigger point for this increased intervention (aside from evidence of increasing credibility that gas has been used) was the fact that the Assad regime is on the verge of military victory and that allowing the Assad/Hezbollah/Tehran axis so emphatic a victory is simply not consistent with the national security interests of the United States.
It’s an ugly mess and there’s no good solution. But it has no effect on either IRS or NSA issues. Moreover, in neither of those issues is the Obama Administration particularly implicated. The first appears pretty clearly to be bureaucratic cock-up stuff. The second would be in our laps regardless of which administration was in office.
There should be NO assistance. The rebels have just pledged their allegiance to Al Quaeda.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/04/11/syria-al-qaeda-connection/2075323/
If there is open support in one group…then there is more support. And there is no way to tell the good guys from the bad guys. The “good” rebels MUST cooperate with the Al Quaeda supporters.
If Assad wins…status quo. If the rebels win…. Al Queda gets a nuclear power plant, WMD, and access to a somewhat modern state.
@Cargosquid
One group. Nearly 100k have died in this civil war and many of those have been women and children. The wide spread use of sarin gas as a weapon in the region is simply unacceptable.
No one wants involvement. That’s why we aren’t in there now.
All the groups must cooperate with each other. There is no separating them unless those rebels seeking liberty and not sharia or Al Queda also fight against the Al Queda bunch.
Did all the Indian tribes cooperate with each other? Did all of the Northern Alliance cooperate? Did the French Resistance all work together? Reality check or perhaps just a control freak.
An humongous quagmire awaits us.
@Moon-howler
The “liberty minded” rebels are a minority. If they do not cooperate, the fundamentalists will kill them…. as it is…they are screwed, because they will be killed ANYWAY, later.
This is a civil war between Shiite, Sunni, and minority Islamic sects, along with Christians on Assad’s side. The Christians know that they are doomed if the fundamentalists take over.
War is ugly. This one is also putting too much stress on its neighbors, causing instability.
So you suggest we just continue to stand by and watch women, children and old people get slaughtered?
Did you oppose Bosnia also?
I would posit that Bosnia was a not unexpected repartition of the Balkans after a period in which a diversity of cuiltures and religions were held together by force in an essentially artificial nation called Jugoslavia. Once Tito had passed, there was no one who could match his dominant personality and strongarm skill at keeping the “nation” together. When the rebellion of the constituent parts was won with our help, the boundaries were redrawn, independent states re-emerged, the atrocities stopped, and the international courts could address retributions for the gross violations of human rights. Peace largely reigns again — except in parts of Kosovo.
I am not yet able to see Syria being partitioned at the end of this conflict, although there may be some Alawite and Kurdish pressure in that direction if the rebels win. I suspect any winner will reign over a seething nation which will not forget the nearly 100,000 dead already. I see a nation of barely controllable partisanship and tempers which may break out often in personal or partisan vengeance unless the new Syrian state becomes another truly head-busting and hanging tree dictatorship. I see a potentially explosive cocktail of Sunni, Shia, radical Islamist Sunni, Assad’s own Alawite Shia, Christians, and Kurds, all seeking their own advantages and all with stark reminders of prior slaughter and thoughts of justice for past grievances. I’m not sure that, even it this “war” ends, it will really end. I hope it does, but……..
@Wolverine
And then……we get involved and have all of that pointed at us.
4500 troops are in Jordan on an exercise. I hope we are sensible and bring them home.
Believe it or not, I agree with Kelly. Suddenly the administration “found” proof about chemical weapons? Sounds like a diversion to me, not that I think Obama really needs one.
I hate to see people slaughtered, but I can’t see how you intervene here without inadvertently supporting those who hate us (and democracy) and/or being sucked in for decades.
Kill everyone. That’s what will ultimately happen. No easy answers.