Syria Crisis: Obama Has Not Decided on Launching a Military Assault on Syria
President Barack Obama sounds defensive all of a sudden on Syria. He has been extremely aggressive on Syria and its government for the last few days in particular. Strong possibilities of a potential military attack on Syria were talked about so much that one thought it would take hours only for U.S. to launch an attack on Syria.
Obama was talking to PBS NewsHour as he stated that he was yet to decide on launching a military assault on Syria even though he had conclusive evidence that it had been the Assad government that was responsible for the chemical attack on the civilians in Syria. He said that he was having "extensive conversations" with the national security personnel. The decision of a military attack on Syria will depend on America's "self-interest", he said.
The change of tone in Obama's voice may surprise many as he is not well known for going defensive on his stance. In fact, he is better known for having one of the sharpest tongues to voice his opinion. On the contrary, he seems to be left with not many choices right now as UK refuses to a be part of any military attack on Syria.
The UK Parliament has, on Thursday, voted against any sort of military interference in Syria. UK is apparently willing to learn from its past mistakes. The leader of the opposition, Edward Miliband, referred to Tony Blair's decision to join hands with the U.S. in the mission to invade Iraq. He said he would not prefer UK to make the same mistakes that the former prime minister made in 2003.
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Kenneth Pollack, whose book in favour of invading Iraq was published in 2002, too seems unconvinced to invade Syria this time. He opined that people should not make significant political decisions based on predictive analysis. He said that there was no independent assessment to convince him that the Assad government did use chemical weapons.
On the other hand, Obama faced strong resistance on Thursday from U.S. lawmakers who had demanded more substantial proof against the Syrian government.
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