U.S., allies prepare military strikes against Syria
Kerry said that the Syrian government’s refusal to allow immediate access to the attack sites last Wednesday, followed by the continued shelling of those areas in order to destroy any evidence of chemical attack, were telling indicators that it was trying to hide responsibility. The fact that the Syrian government, five days after the gas attack, allowed a UN team of investigators to reach the area where the attack took place was “too late” to be credible.
“Our sense of basic humanity is offended not only by this cowardly crime but also by the cynical attempt to cover it up,” Kerry said.
The Wall Street Journal reports that administration lawyers have been crafting legal justifications for an intervention without UN approval that could be based on findings that Assad used chemical weapons and created a major humanitarian crisis.
In an interview Monday with Europe 1, a French radio station, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France, said “all options” were still open in crafting an international response, but “the only option I do not envisage is to do nothing.”
Fabius said there was no doubt that chemical weapons had been used and outside powers would negotiate a “proportionate response” in the “days to come.”
Turkey’s foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the Milliyet newspaper that Turkey would join an international coalition against Assad if the UN Security Council could not reach a consensus. Turkey is a strong supporter of the Syrian rebels.
In London, William Hague, the British foreign secretary, took a similar approach to an international response. “Is it possible to respond to chemical weapons without complete unity on the UN Security Council?” he told the BBC in a radio interview. “I would argue yes it is, otherwise it might be impossible to respond to such outrages, such crimes, and I don’t think that’s an acceptable situation.”
In Israel, a senior government official said Monday it was “crystal clear” that Assad’s forces used chemical weapons last week and described the UN investigation effort a “joke.” The official said that Iran, a close ally of the Syrian leader, should also be held responsible.
“The world cannot allow this to proceed,” Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of international affairs, strategy and intelligence, told international reporters at a briefing Monday morning in Jerusalem. “The Iranians are already trying to isolate themselves from the use of chemical weapons. This is a kind of hypocrisy. You cannot be part of this terrible, brutal war and say, ‘Yeah, I participate in the war but I isolate myself, I separate myself from the use of chemical weapons.’ Assad today is almost a total proxy to Iran.”
Echoing other Israeli leaders, Steinitz suggested that the Syria situation was a kind of harbinger regarding Iran’s disputed nuclear program. “If Iran would get nuclear weapons, it’s going to create a new, very dangerous new world, this is a global game-changer,” he said.
