Watch: President Obama’s full address to American people on Syria
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama, after a feverish campaign to win over Congress and the American people for military strikes against Syria, said he would give diplomacy more time to rid the country of its chemical weapons arsenal that Washington says was used to gas and kill more than 1,400 people. The president did not say how long he would wait.
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While stepping back from what looked to be a certain defeat in his bid for congressional support for a strike against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s military, Obama still spent most of his 16-minute White House address to the nation Tuesday night making the case for punishing the Syrian regime as a deterrent to further use of chemical weapons – banned by international treaty – and as a warning to other countries that might be tempted to use them.
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“The images from this massacre are sickening. Men, women, and children lying in rows, killed by poison gas, others foaming at mouth, gasping for breath, a father clutching his dead children, imploring them to get up and walk,” Obama said. U.S. officials say more than 1,400 people died.
Yet, he said, he would give a diplomatic proposal by Russia, Syria’s most powerful ally, a try. Syria’s foreign minister said Tuesday that his government was ready to turn over its chemical weapons stockpile in line with the proposal in order “to thwart U.S. aggression.”
Polls show a majority of Americans want nothing more to do with U.S. military involvement in the Middle East after the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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“It’s too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that the Assad regime keeps its commitments,” Obama said. “But this initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force.”
The diplomatic deal that is under discussion, with Assad’s agreement, would put Syria’s chemical weapons under international control for destruction. Obama has sent Secretary of State John Kerry to Geneva to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday to work out details.
Republican Sen. John McCain, an outspoken advocate of U.S. military intervention for months, said Wednesday he was concerned that the Russian plan could be a delaying tactic and “that the slaughter goes on.”
Watch: Americans react to President Obama’s address
Obama said he has ordered the military to remain prepared to carry out attacks if needed. Addressing criticism over his own promise of limited strikes, Obama said, “Even a limited strike will send a message to Assad that no other nation can deliver.”
The president recalled the use of deadly chemical weapons in the European trenches of World War I and the Nazi gas chambers of World War II and insisted that the international community could not stand by after a chemical weapons attack last month in the suburbs of Damascus.
Other casualty estimates are lower in last month’s attack. Assad has blamed it on rebels who have been fighting to drive him from power in a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 civilians.
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Obama blamed the attack on Assad and warned that a failure to act now would encourage tyrants and terrorists to use similar weapons.
“Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security, are at stake in Syria, along with our leadership of a world where we seek to ensure that the worst weapons will never be used,” he said.
A major challenge remains: Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that the United States pledge not to use military force in the future.
That is a demand that will not be met. Obama explained his reasoning.
“If diplomacy now fails and the United States fails to act, “the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons,” he said. Over time, he added, the weapons could threaten U.S. troops as well as allies in the region like Turkey, Jordan and Israel.
“America is not the world’s policeman,” Obama said. “Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act.”
At the same time, Obama said the United States and its allies would work with Russia and China to present a resolution to the United Nations Security Council requiring Assad to give up his chemical weapons and to ultimately destroy them under international control.
Russia has blocked U.S. attempts to rally the U.N. Security Council behind a military strike.
Syria has refused to provide an accounting of the size of its chemical weapons stockpile, rarely referring in public to its existence. According to an unclassified estimate by the French government, it includes more than 1,000 tons of “chemical agents and precursor chemicals,” including sulfur mustard, VX and sarin gas.
Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Julie Pace and David Espo contributed to this report.
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