Syria's chemical weapons red line has troubling consequences – for Obama

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/26/syria-chemical-weapons-red-line-obama


A White House letter to Senator John McCain said: 'intelligence assessments alone are not sufficient.' Photograph: Larry Downing/Reuters

Barack Obama is in a bind. On 21 March, he set out a "red line" for Syria over the use of chemical weapons:

"We will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people, or the transfer of those weapons to terrorists."

Failure to heed the warning would result in "consequences".

But the Obama administration is rightly reluctant to be drawn in to the Middle East. So, even after announcing on Thursday that it is likely that chemical weapons had been used, the White House has begun to backtrack.

Desperate to avoid following through on its warning of "consequences", the White House has thrown up lots of seemingly reasonable excuses: there is no certainty yet that chemical weapons have been used; the US cannot intervene on the basis of intelligence alone; and in any case, it may only have been a small amount