In a statement early this afternoon, August 30th, Secretary of State John Kerry made unequivocal claims that the United States has found intelligence confirming that the Assad regime in Syria used chemical weapons to attack a Damascus suburb on August 21st. In a statement last year, President Obama had said that the use of chemical weapons would be a “red line,” that could prompt US intervention in the now two-year-long civil war in that country. Kerry’s statement today confirms that the US will take military action in Syria, though Kerry claimed that there would be no “boots on the ground” and that it will not be “open ended.”
Secretary Kerry’s statement comes just one day after British Prime Minister David Cameron’s war motion was shot down in the House of Commons, the first time such a motion has been denied since 1782. This decision by Parliament was seen as a blow to President Obama, as the UK has been one of the United States’ strongest military allies. On the other hand, France’s President François Holland voiced his support for military action in Syria.
Kerry said that the US intelligence estimates that at least 1,429 Syrians were killed in the chemical attack, 426 of them children. The intelligence, according to Kerry, shows the Syrian army moving chemical weapons in Assad-controlled territory in the days before the attack, and that the attack was staged from Assad-controlled territory into rebel-controlled territory. Kerry stated that there is “high confidence” from this intelligence that Assad and his forces carried out what certainly is the use of chemical weapons. Kerry stated, “So the primary question is really no longer, what do we know. The question is, what are we — we collectively — what are we in the world gonna do about it.”
The opinion on whether the United States should intervene in Syria has been sharply divided since the civil war started, with the American public somewhat wary of another protracted conflict in the Middle East after over a decade of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States has not been able to garner the support of the United Nations, primarily because Russia, Assad’s strongest ally, has blocked any such motion in the UN security council. In light of Kerry’s statement today, either unilateral or coalition action by the United States in Syria seems immanent.
Read Secretary Kerry’s full statement here