Obama Seeks a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ on Syria
President Barack Obama has said the American response to the Syrian regime’s apparent use of chemical weapons must involve the international community.
“If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it,” Obama told CNN last week. “Do we have the coalition to make it work? And, you know, those are considerations that we have to take into account.”
Unfortunately for Obama, a U.N. mandate — or support from almost any international institutions, for that matter — is looking unlikely.
No consensus this week can be found at the United Nations, within NATO or from the Arab League. Even the member states of the European Union can’t agree on what to do in Syria. Does this mean the U.S. won’t act? Given Secretary of State John Kerry’s impassioned comments Monday that the chemical attack in Syria was a “moral obscenity” that was “by any standard inexcusable,” the Obama administration seems poised to act.
It will simply have to do so with a coalition of the willing.
Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/08/26/obama-seeks-a-coalition-of-the-willing-on-syria/#ixzz2dARzR1tB