Arab League Rejects Attack Against Syria

[dkf]

CAIRO — The leaders of the Arab world on Tuesday blamed the Syrian government for a chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of people last week, but declined to back a retaliatory military strike, leaving President Obama without the broad regional support he had for his last military intervention in the Middle East, in Libya in 2011.

While the Obama administration has robust European backing and more muted Arab support for a strike on Syria, the position of the Arab League and the unlikelihood of securing authorization from the United Nations Security Council complicate the legal and diplomatic case for the White House.

The White House said Tuesday that there was “no doubt” that President Bashar al-Assad’s government was responsible for the chemical weapons attack — an assessment shared by Britain, France and other allies — but it has yet to make clear if it has any intelligence directly linking Mr. Assad to the attack. The administration said it planned to provide intelligence on the attack later this week.

As Mr. Obama sought to shore up international support for military action, telephoning Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, administration officials said they did not regard the lack of an imprimatur from the Security Council or the Arab League as insurmountable hurdles, given the carnage last week.

Administration officials said the United States did not seek an endorsement of military action from the Arab League. It sought condemnation of the use of chemical weapons and a clear assignment of responsibility for the attack to the Assad government, both of which the officials said they were satisfied they got.

http://news.nytco.com/2013/08/28/world/middleeast/arab-league-rejects-attack-against-syria.html?smid=tw-nytimes

[David__77]

1. Yep, this would be more clearly neo-con nonsense than even the Bush/Iraq adventure.

Bush at least tried to go to the UN.

[Catherina]

2. Officially or just for show? Saudi Arabia and Qatar are 100% behind this & up to their necks in it

So let me get this straight, after dragging Obama in, now they're going to leave him hanging dry as if this was all his idea and he's over-reacting? After they armed and encouraged the rebels?

No honor among thieves.

This isn't going to end well. We left ourselves no wiggle room with all that talk of a red line and Kerry's performance yesterday.

[BainsBane]

3. Interesting point

I know you're ignoring me, but still a useful point.

[Catherina]

5. Thanks

Nope. You were just for a week or two. It's a rotating, temporary list except for the most egregious cases.

[Alamuti Lotus]

4. There are fierce divisions, but a lot of that is just for show

Morocco, Jordan, and the Gulf dictators are squarely lined up behind the plotters for war, except Oman--the sultan opposes Saudi arrogance and hegemony and has close enough ties to Iran to maintain effective neutrality. Yemen is practically a client state of the Saudi dictatorship now. Iraq is obviously fiercely opposed, as are Lebanon and Algeria. I haven't seen Libya's stance, but I assume that the NATO Republic would speak and vote however it is told to. I would have assumed the same about the fascist military dictatorship in Egypt, but the dictator Sisi is bizarrely triangulating his position between the Wahhabi/Zionist axis and the resistance arc and seems to be opposing any such actions at this time.

Note that these particular divisions (monarchies vs. republics) exist on virtually every issue.

I can't imagine that the Saudi-dominated camp opposes these schemes (most of the oil and gas dictatorships host some US/Euro military base of some kind), so some sort of performance is almost certainly taking place.

[Catherina]

6. A serious question

I was with you until you got to Wahhabi/Zionist axis. How come everyone else gets a country? I appreciate your response but I don't think this is a matter of zionism at all. It's straight up imperial lust for world resources and weakening Russia and China. Could you please explain what you mean by that term? I don't want to misunderstand you. By Wahabi, I take it you're referring to the governments of Saudi Arabia + Qatar who are stirring up Shia-Sunni problems throughout the ME? And by Zionist, you mean the government of Israel? So a political alliance of political movements? It's 5:30 in the morning and I'm totally confused because I DU-googled that particular term and saw you using it with Lithos and he didn't bat an eyelash. I'm obviously missing something. It came across as a loaded term at first but after reading your post about 20 times, I think I understand, and understand why you tied this to monarchies vs. republics. But I'm still not sure. Or clear. The main thing your post drove home is that there are fluid, overlapping lines all over the place and they're explosive, laid out on a bed of gunpowder.

[Little Star]

7. Yep!

[Little Star]

8. k&r

[cali]

9. what cynical fuckwads.

it's called plausible deniability and it's largely for domestic consumption.