csmonitor.com
Even if this IS JUST saber rattling…
I’m gonna guess that the US ALREADY has begun to slelct tragets for the drones and carrier based fighters to strike….
I’m also gonna guess that the Brits and Frnace are in on this…..
Obama does NOT need this….(Not ANOTHER War move)
But SOMETHING has bothered him enough to go hard there. with a threat…
from the Washington Post….
President Obama said Monday that any attempt by Syria to move or use its chemical weapons would change his administration’s “calculus” in the region, evoking the possibility of more direct U.S. intervention in the conflict.
Speaking at an impromptu news conference at the White House, Obama noted that he has not authorized military operations against Syria. But he said that any effort by President Bashar al-Assad to use chemical weapons would have significant consequences.
“We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus,” Obama said. “That would change my equation. . . . We’re monitoring that situation very carefully. We have put together a range of contingency plans.”
The president’s remarks represented his strongest language to date on how the United States might respond to contain Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. In July, he warned that Assad would be “held accountable by the international community” if he made the “tragic mistake” of deploying chemical munitions.
On Monday, an administration official said that Obama did not intend to flag any change in policy in his latest remarks and that the appetite for military intervention remains low.
But “there’s a deterrent effect in making clear how seriously we take the use of chemical weapons or giving them to some proxy force,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.
Obama’s comments earlier this summer followed a suggestion from a spokesman for the Syrian Foreign Ministry that the Damascus government would deploy chemical munitions only in the case of foreign intervention in the country’s mounting civil war. At the time, the remarks were widely seen as a confirmation of Syria’s chemical weapons capability.
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Someone remind me (I’m not being sarcastic, just forgetful) has the U.S. ratified whatever Chemical Weapons treaty is now in effect? Or have anti-internationalists blocked that one, too?
Of course the U.S. case against Assad would be far weaker if the U.S. hasn’t ratified.
I believe the US is one remaining countries NOT to have sign the treaty
The US Congress has NO plans to do so I believe