Obama sends confusing messages on Syria crisis

We now know that President Barack Obama’s decision to punish Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons against its own people on Aug. 21 will not be carried out anytime soon. The military strike could take place next week or even next month, according to him.
There is also the chance that it may never happen at all. In a strange twist of events last week Britain’s House of Commons rejected David Cameron’s pleas to authorize the government to launch an attack against the Syrian regime. Even members of his coalition government voted against the motion.
Reverberations of the British vote traveled quickly across the Atlantic and on Saturday President Obama announced that he would seek authorization from the Congress to attack Syria. But he did not call Congress from its summer recess and opted to wait until US legislators convened on Sept. 9. He said he looked forward to a lively debate on the issue. Leading commentators were baffled by this latest maneuver; was he taking a dangerous gamble or was it a cunning move on his part?
And surely France’s President François Hollande decided too to consult the country’s National Assembly on the issue. French officials declared that France cannot carry out a unilateral strike on Syria and will wait for the US to take the lead. It appeared that the western coalition against Syria was unraveling as polls showed that the public in the US, Britain and France was against military strikes. Added to this was the mounting pressure from Russia on the US to present evidence to the UN Security Council that incriminates the Syrian regime in the chemical attack. In spite of all the talk about mounting evidence against Damascus the US or its allies have so far released nothing. The UN team investigating the alleged use of chemical weapons in Al-Ghouta in Damascus will take days and even weeks to present its report to the UN secretary-general. And even then it will not point the finger of blame at any specific party. The Arab League, on its part, has already named the regime of President Bashar Assad as the responsible party for the alleged chemical attack and called on the international community and the UN to carry out their responsibilities. The Gulf countries and Turkey want the US strike to be a comprehensive one leading to the fall of Assad. But the Arab League’s Secretary-General Nabil Al-Arabi said on Monday that the Arabs still want to see a political solution to the Syrian crisis.
President Obama made it clear that the proposed strike would be limited in scope and duration and would come as a response to Assad’s use of chemical weapons. He said the US is still looking for a political solution and has no intention of bringing down the regime.
With so many conflicting positions and expectations it is no wonder that the Assad regime is showing signs of relief. Syrian officials have warned that a strike against Syria will only strengthen the hands of Al-Qaeda and increase anti-Western sentiments across the region.
It now appears that President Obama has bought himself precious time to re-examine the issue. In few days he will meet leaders of the G20 in St. Petersburg in Russia and undoubtedly the Syrian conflict will feature in the deliberations. The only thing that most parties to the conflict agree on now is the need to push for a political solution on Syria. This is something that Russia and the US can still collaborate on. The G20 meeting may revive efforts to convene the proposed Geneva II conference.
But by taking the matter to the US Congress President Obama may get more than what he bargained for. US lawmakers are divided on the issue, with many Republican leaders calling for a more decisive military operation against Assad’s regime. Others are fearful of a repetition of the Iraq scenario and the debacle that ensued. A defeat of the proposed law will deal a fatal blow to Obama’s political standing, but if he gets the authorization it may abort any chance for a political deal with Russia on Syria. The irony in all this is that the US threat to use force against Syria rests solely on the alleged use of chemical weapons by the regime and nothing else. Two and half years of bloody conflict and the fact that more than 100,000 Syrians had perished so far are not good enough reasons to justify intervention. As a result of this there is sound logic behind Russia’s insistence on seeing US evidence tying the Assad regime to the attacks. So far there is no smoking gun and without support from the UN Security Council any strike against Syria will be extrajudicial.
The US about-face on Syria is a baffling one. It wants to punish the regime but stops short of changing it. It refuses to arm the rebels while it supports their political leadership. It wants to reach a political settlement on Syria but says it is about to wage a military strike against Damascus. It claims it does not want to get involved in a new war but its actions may ignite one in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the bloodbath shows no sign of abating in Syria.

• Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.

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