Nato members could act against Syria without UN mandate [View all]

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Source: Guardian

Barack Obama is unlikely to have much trouble mustering a Nato coalition of the willing if Washington opts for military intervention in Syria in response to the alleged chemical weapons atrocities by the Assad regime.

There is, however, no prospect of a UN mandate for international military action over Syria – with the Kremlin, enraged at what it saw as abuse of a UN mandate to topple Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, certain to keep wielding its veto.

Turkey, which accounts for Nato's second largest army after the US, and which is on the frontline with Syria, bearing the brunt of the massive refugee crisis, is already a key conduit for arms supplies to, and a safe haven for, the sundry groups of fighters at war with Damascus.

It has been the loudest critic of the Assad regime, clamouring for the west to do more. In any international coalition Turkey would be likely to play a key role – with a potential impact on the country's own ethnic balance, especially the relations between the Sunni Muslim majority and the sizeable Alevi minority concentrated in the south near the Syrian border

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/25/syria-un-mandate-nato-military-action