Syria

[RA1]

You must not know the people I fly with.

Best regards,

RA1

[RA1]

The reason is what Madison wrote to Jefferson:

"The constitution supposes, what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it."

Thus the Constitutional Convention "has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature."

We'll see whether either branch remembers that.

http://www.libertyclassroom.com/warpowers/

I read your post but not the link until today. I apologize for being dilatory. It appears the answer to your question, regardless of Professor Woods's logical argument, is neither side will pay any attention to the Constitution and my answer of 90 days will be the least, not the most (as intended).

This whole unilateral episode to be brings up another point and that is, with all this notice, how will spending millions launching cruise missiles first hit any targets worth hitting and second do anything more than barely rattle the sabre? Won't Assad simply either move stores of WMD out of harm's way or into schools and hospitals. Those are well known and proven strategies.

The thought has been advanced that doing "anything" will put Iran on notice about further development of nuclear weapons and all of the middle east that the US is not a paper tiger. Actually I think the actions contemplated tend to prove we are a paper tiger.

Best regards,

RA1

[TampaYankee]

Saw an interview with former Senator and Secretary of State Wm Cohen yesterday or the day before. I very much support his stand.

He says we cannot let the use of gas happen with impunity, that we should strike but it should not be rushed.

First, make sure that Congress and the nation is fully briefed with the intelligence.

Then he wants Obama to haul Russia, China and Syria into the UN Security Council and present the proof that Assad used Seran gas on his people and then let them take a stand in support of a country that has been shown to use gas warfare on its people. The other countries on the Security Council can stand up and be counted as well after seeing the proof. All of this a-la Adlai Stevenson/Cuban Missile Crisis.

Also, that when strikes are made they must be substantive and damaging to future ability to carry out gas warfare. Not a regime changing result but much more than a feckless 'formal' response that will do more harm than good.

[lookin]

I always feel like the odd man out in these discussions about killing people. Maybe I was at an impressionable age when I first heard the commandment about "Thou Shalt Not Kill" but, ever since, I've had a real aversion to killing people, whatever the method. The hundred thousand or so Syrians dead from so-called 'conventional' weapons are, to me, just as distressing as the thousand or so dead from chemical weapons. If we were going to teach Assad a lesson about the evil of murdering folks, why didn't we start a little earlier? And why didn't we sit in the class ourselves?

[Guest EXPAT]

I'm glad that Obama is going to seek Congressional approval. It will be interesting to see who comes out on the side of politics and who comes out on the side of doing what's right for global and US national security.

[RA1]

Saw an interview with former Senator and Secretary of State Wm Cohen yesterday or the day before. I very much support his stand.

He says we cannot let the use of gas happen with impunity, that we should strike but it should not be rushed.

First, make sure that Congress and the nation is fully briefed with the intelligence.

Then he wants Obama to haul Russia, China and Syria into the UN Security Council and present the proof that Assad used Seran gas on his people and then let them take a stand in support of a country that has been shown to use gas warfare on its people. The other countries on the Security Council can stand up and be counted as well after seeing the proof. All of this a-la Adlai Stevenson/Cuban Missile Crisis.

Also, that when strikes are made they must be substantive and damaging to future ability to carry out gas warfare. Not a regime changing result but much more than a feckless 'formal' response that will do more harm than good.

I don't see any of this happening. Also, regardless of BO asking for Congressional approval, anything short of all out warfare will be a waste of time, money and effort. This has not happened since WWII and will not happen during this situation either.

Best regards,

RA1

[MsGuy]

I'm not up to speed on all the reasons why France wants to bomb Syria, although they certainly have the ability to step in and do it themselves if they can't prod the U. S. into doing it.

-------------------

France nabbed Syria and Lebanon as League of Nations mandates when the Ottoman Empire was carved up after WWI. Europeans tend to take a special interest in the goings on in their former colonies. That's a significant part of the reason England so readily joined joined us in our second war with Iraq.

Or maybe they just like being contrary. Who knows, they are French, you know.

[Guest hitoallusa]

I'm glad that my Obama is seeking congressional approval for the strike.. I knew that I could trust my once hubby to be..

[TampaYankee]

I always feel like the odd man out in these discussions about killing people. Maybe I was at an impressionable age when I first heard the commandment about "Thou Shalt Not Kill" but, ever since, I've had a real aversion to killing people, whatever the method. The hundred thousand or so Syrians dead from so-called 'conventional' weapons are, to me, just as distressing as the thousand or so dead from chemical weapons. If we were going to teach Assad a lesson about the evil of murdering folks, why didn't we start a little earlier? And why didn't we sit in the class ourselves?

Lookin' I sympathize with your point of view and in a perfect world there would be no killing with malice. However, the world is not perfect, and based on observation it never will be as long as humans walk its face. Killing goes back to Cain and Able metaphorically and that means since there have been humans. Our desires to the contrary do not seem to change that.

Many people have decried why worry about the death of 1400 when we ignored the death of 100,000 over the last two years or so. What's the big deal? The big deal is what Weapons of Mass Destruction do -- mass destruction. Gas warfare can kill 100,000 people in a week easily, and more indiscriminately than any conventional weapons. And for little more than a Happy Meal costs in the scale of things. Imagine what Syria would look like if Assad went full scale with gas weapons. You open the door a little, then next time a little wider and the next time still wider. Nobody does anything. Ok, lets end this thing once and for all, he says. Aleppo is wiped free of life. The outskirts of Damascus are made a no mans land. Who knows what else.

The next war may see the Kurds gassed or one crazy African tribe gases another. Ten thousand dead in a day, maybe more. Who knows? Weapons of mass destruction are ideal for wars of genocide which we have seen several in our lifetime, thankfully without WMD.

The point is gas is cheap, light thus easy to transport, and very effective at killing tens of thousands indiscriminately -- men women children, farm animals and honey bees. This is what the world embraces, now and in the future, if it does not take a definitive stand against these weapons. Imagine Rwanda or the Balkans with gas warfare. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been wastelands.

We learned this lesson in The War To End All Wars. Neville Chamberlain also taught us that ignoring it does not make it go away. It really is true that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.

[lookin]

The point is gas is cheap, light thus easy to transport, and very effective at killing tens of thousands indiscriminately -- men women children, farm animals and honey bees. This is what the world embraces, now and in the future, if it does not take a definitive stand against these weapons.

Well, you won't catch me pimping for the use of chemical weapons versus any other kinds of weapons. In my opinion, they all stink. Any time we humans pick up a weapon to wipe out another human, we ourselves are becoming less human. When we kill others, I think we also kill part of ourselves.

My interest is in what we do when we find ourselves in that spiral of killing as a way to prevent killing. Whatever weapon we lob into Syria is, at the most, going to exchange one set of deadly weapons for another, or shift the identities of who kills whom. The end result will still be humans killing humans in Syria and, very possibly, beyond Syria. None of these outcomes is one that I would consider a 'successful' resolution to what's going on in that country or in dozens of other countries around the world.

Pope Francis is coming at it from the point of a worldwide prayer vigil on Wednesday to urge all sides to stop the murder. I applaud him for it. Even if he doesn't cause a single person in Syria to lay down a weapon, he will at least focus our attention on our own future actions and perhaps convince a few of us to think of an alternative to killing someone we disagree with.

The United States spends nearly $700 billion a year on our military, and has the most advanced devices for taking human life that the world has ever known. We also have a President who has the Nobel Peace Prize sitting in his house. Why shouldn't we spend even a tithe of that money, or of our leaders' time, focusing on ways to lead the world away from war? Wouldn't that be a worthwhile goal for the 'leader of the free world'? And if our immediate reaction to such an idea is "It'll never happen!", what's wrong with spending just a few moments asking ourselves how we came to that conclusion and why we find it acceptable to stay there?

Just wondering.

[Lucky]

Isn't it interesting that the Pope can now be credited as a credible world leader again? Not to say all is well, but it's sure a breath of fresh air. But then, who am I to judge?

[RA1]

lookin-

I find it interesting that your mention that BO received the Nobel prize while sitting in his house which I take to mean he did nothing to deserve it. Probably you do not mean my interpretation. But, I do.

I have wondered for quite some time how an neighborhood organizer who did virtually nothing before being elected to the US Senate and very little since can receive such as the NPP. What it definitely has done is reduce my opinion of the prize.

Sorry to be so negative.

Best regards,

RA1

[lookin]

lookin-

I find it interesting that your mention that BO received the Nobel prize while sitting in his house which I take to mean he did nothing to deserve it. Probably you do not mean my interpretation.

No, as you suspected, I didn't mean that. (And I meant the award was sitting in his house, although I'm sure he sits there too from time to time.) His words before he got it led me to believe he deserved it. And he did unwind two wars that needed unwinding.

However, he's not acting today as I'd like to see a Nobel Peace Prize recipient act. My hope is that tomorrow he will start growing back into the award. Tuesday, at the latest.

[RA1]

Not to beat up on you but "his words"? What about his deeds (or lack thereof)?

Best regards,

RA1

[RA1]

lookin-

It is my personal opinion that you have done more for your fellow citizens than BO has.

And, your ratings are higher, your international reputation is better and your probably have a rescue pet.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest hitoallusa]

I think Obama is doing the right thing to get congressional approval. Let's see how the Obama administration makes its arguments for the strike. If Assad is crazy enough to gas his own people then he needs to be reprimanded.

[RA1]

How can BO go wrong with this idea, other than have world opinion continue to fall? It is already way too late to do anything (limited) that might be effective, if the Congress won't approve "better late than never" then he can blame them and, if Congress does approve this mission of folly and things go wrong, he can blame Congress. Funny, these things are never the administration's fault.

Best regards,

RA1

[TampaYankee]

How can BO go wrong with this idea, other than have world opinion continue to fall? It is already way too late to do anything (limited) that might be effective, if the Congress won't approve "better late than never" then he can blame them and, if Congress does approve this mission of folly and things go wrong, he can blame Congress. Funny, these things are never the administration's fault.

Best regards,

RA1

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

[Guest hitoallusa]

I don't think Obama will be damned either way.. He needs to do what is right and needed at the time. I hope he can achieve his goal.

[Guest EXPAT]

It really made me sick listening to all of the partisan rhetoric yesterday and this morning on the news shows. We are no longer electing leaders. We are electing power hungry corporate suckups. It's disgusting.

[Lucky]

I agree with EXPAT on this partisan rhetoric, but it's a fact that the British and the American people have tired of Mideast wars. And they should be. It may come at some cost to the Syrian rebels, but frankly, they aren't exactly our allies. This entire country has been anti-American and helping stir shit in the MidEast, and now the chickens come home to roost. I abhor chemical warfare, but a few bombs after the fact that seems to be the Obama plan isn't going to help. We need a rest and a recovery here before we can help other countries in the Mideast.

[Guest EXPAT]

So I wonder what Obama said to John McCain & Lindsay Graham to make them both come from the White House in support of his plan.

[TampaYankee]

I abhor chemical warfare, but a few bombs after the fact that seems to be the Obama plan isn't going to help. We need a rest and a recovery here before we can help other countries in the Mideast.

The right thing to do is to provide a stinging miliatry rebuke to the use of chemical warfare. The right thing to do is more than a symbolic lob of a few bombs. Let's hope that Obama does the right thing. Let's urge him to do so!

[lookin]

Interesting opinion piece in yesterday's Jerusalem Post:

Terra Incognita: Irrational condemnation of Obama

By Seth J. Frantzman

09/02/2013 21:32

It can’t be that only the US is responsible for stopping war crimes.

Confused, weak, ineffectual, prevaricating, hesitant; all those words, and other synonyms gathered from a thesaurus that commentators likely keep at hand for these types of situations, have been used to castigate the US president’s “inaction” on Syria. He has been lambasted for abandoning Israel and giving the Iranians the feeling that their nuclear program will never be opposed.

Israeli Journalist Avi Issacharoff claimed “Israel is truly alone” and Bayit Yehudi head Naftali Bennett said it “proves once more that Israel cannot count on anyone but itself.” Fellow party member and MK, Uri Ariel, claimed last week that “we, as people, we as Jews, cannot remain silent in the face of genocide.” A half page ad in Haaretz, run by a dentist, asked Obama “don’t you have any teeth?” Israel’s press has been similarly apoplectic. Yediot Aharonot ran a cover showing Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur and Syria, asking “until when?” Bradley Burston goes further; “here in the Holy Land, the genocide in Syria has made all of us, Israelis and Palestinians both, into the townspeople of Auschwitz [living next to genocide]… President Obama no longer has the option of nothing.”

LET’S TAKE a step back for a moment. First of all, there is something massively hypocritical about those outside the US who “demand” US action “immediately” in Syria. Ariel told Army Radio that Assad should be “taken care of already.” It sounds like “yalla, get going America.”

For those that demand America do more, perhaps they should demand their government do something, rather than tell everyone else to do more. There is an incredible dissonance for non-Americans to sit around on their armchairs and “demand action” from the US. If their logic is that the Syrian actions are similar to genocide than it is incumbent on all 200 countries in the world to take action.

It can’t be that only the US is responsible for stopping war crimes and enforcing international norms. How about Brazil, South Africa, India, Australia or Nigeria? Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal has “urged US action” on Syria. He claims that his country can’t be bothered to do anything. “There is no capacity in the Arab world to respond to this crises,” he said.

Really? There are 22 Arab states and they don’t have the “capacity” to do anything? The Saudi military alone has the most modern hardware, courtesy of the US. This consists of 310 Abrams tanks and more than 300 combat aircraft, including F-15s. It isn’t capacity that holds them back, it is cowardice. In 1991 when Saddam Hussein was on their border, they likewise hid behind America, vowing, as the saying goes, to “fight to the death of the last American.”

Turkey is the elephant in the room. It too supports US intervention, even though it shares 822 kilometers of border with Syria. But on not one kilometer can the Turkish military, outfitted with the latest NATO equipment, be called upon to say “never again.” Only the Americans can do that, from several thousand miles away.

The Arab media is full of condemnations of the US for “inaction” on Syria. Hussein Ibish, of the American Task Force on Palestine, bashes the US for “promoting” a refugee crises, intensification of the conflict and the rise of Islamist extremism through “inaction.” Elias Harfoush has bashed the US at Al-Hayat claiming “Obama sat in his oval office at the White House for two and a half years, counting the numbers of casualties among the Syrian people.”

This is the Arab world’s response: Blame America.

America doesn’t bomb people fast enough for public opinion. Not one editorial in the region seems to condemn Arab leaders for “dithering.” The princes and kings of Saudi and the Gulf, they are acceptable. But between discovering whales, sharks and sparrows that are “spying for Israel,” Egyptians throw up their hands and complain about US “inaction.”

Americans should ask themselves serious questions about whether they are being hoodwinked once again by the “international community” to do the job that the community should be doing itself. If regional powers can’t confront Syria – but those same powers demand America take action – serious questions should be asked about why Saudis and Turks can’t stand on the front line, but young men from Alabama and Maine should staff the bombing missions? The evidence for Obama’s supposed “weakness” rests on the theory that the US has not enforced its “red lines.” However the actual “red line” spelled out in August of 2012 was more nuanced; “a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized… that would change my calculus [on intervention],” Obama said. A garbled unintelligible sentence, whose actual conclusion has to do with a changing “calculus,” not even action, is what the US president is being hung on today.

But Obama has been strong in his current position: “This attack is an assault on human dignity. It also presents a serious danger to our national security. It risks making a mockery of the global prohibition on the use of chemical weapons. It endangers our friends… this menace must be confronted… the US should take military action.”

And Obama has done what many US presidents have done before; “I’m also mindful that I’m president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.” He stands in good company historically. On April 12, Confederate forces began the bombardment of the US Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. On April 15 Lincoln obliged the attackers: “In virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution… hereby do call forth, the militia of several states of the Union… in order to suppress” the rebellion. In 1846, after a skirmish with Mexicans on April 26, it took Congress until May 13th to declare war. William Mckinley waited two months to get a declaration of war on Spain in 1898 after a US ship was sunk in Havana.

Lyndon Johnson waited five days for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave him power to use convention forces against North Vietnam. When North Korean forces poured across the 38th parallel at dawn on June 25 it took Harry Truman – arguing that “communism was acting in Korea just as Hitler” – until July 7 to get a resolution out of the UN.

Were Mckinley, Lincoln and Truman all hesitant confused leaders? They were only sparred these accusations because they didn’t operate in a 24-hour news cycle where immediate response is measured in hours, not weeks.

THE ACCUSATION that Obama has allowed the Syrian military to escape by waiting is problematic. If the Syrians have had to disperse their chemical weapons and bury them in the desert, while breaking up their armored units and hiding tanks in orchards and in underground parking lots, this actually represents a success without firing a shot. Supposedly Sun Tzu argued that “every battle is decided before it is fought.” Assad can’t be “emboldened” by this inaction when his generals are looking skyward and some have deserted their headquarters. Let them hide.

The Syrian National Council rebel spokesman Louay Safi says Obama has shown “failed leadership.” The only failure is for the rebels not to take advantage and attack now. However, a video posted online by one Islamist rebel group shows fighters in pickups “attacking” by rounding up some truck drivers who they summarily execute as “Alawite infidels.” Are the Americans seriously expected to step into the breach where some of the Syrian rebels “heroism” consists of gunning down unarmed civilians and shouting “God is great.”

Similarly, those who preach that the use of chemical weapons is a form of genocide are missing the point. If Assad wanted to commit a genocide wouldn’t he kill more than 1,432 people with these weapons, and wouldn’t he have to actually attempt to exterminate a specific group? Saddam Hussein was thought to have killed some 50,000 Kurdish people in the Anfal genocide, where he used chemical weapons in 1988. It took until 2005 for The Hague to rule that an act of genocide.

Comparisons between Syria and Auschwitz are so far off the mark as to dishonor the victims of Auschwitz, rather than honor the victims in Syria. The hysterical preaching about American “inaction” is devoid of historical understanding and based on hyperbole and armchair generalship, more than on reality. The reality is that Obama has made a sound decision to act pragmatically with the support of the American people.

[Guest EXPAT]

Text of President Barack Obama's speech on Syria, as provided by the Federal News Service:

My fellow Americans, tonight I want to talk to you about Syria, why it matters and where we go from here. Over the past two years, what began as a series of peaceful protests against the repressive regime of Bashar al-Assad has turned into a brutal civil war. Over a hundred thousand people have been killed. Millions have fled the country. In that time, America has worked with allies to provide humanitarian support, to help the moderate opposition and to shape a political settlement.

But I have resisted calls for military action because we cannot resolve someone else's civil war through force, particularly after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The situation profoundly changed, though, on Aug. 21st, when Assad's government gassed to death over a thousand people, including hundreds of children. The images from this massacre are sickening, men, women, children lying in rows, killed by poison gas, others foaming at the mouth, gasping for breath, a father clutching his dead children, imploring them to get up and walk. On that terrible night, the world saw in gruesome detail the terrible nature of chemical weapons and why the overwhelming majority of humanity has declared them off limits, a crime against humanity and a violation of the laws of war.

This was not always the case. In World War I, American GIs were among the many thousands killed by deadly gas in the trenches of Europe. In World War II, the Nazis used gas to inflict the horror of the Holocaust. Because these weapons can kill on a mass scale, with no distinction between soldier and infant, the civilized world has spent a century working to ban them. And in 1997, the United States Senate overwhelmingly approved an international agreement prohibiting the use of chemical weapons, now joined by 189 governments that represent 98 percent of humanity.

On Aug. 21st, these basic rules were violated, along with our sense of common humanity.

No one disputes that chemical weapons were used in Syria. The world saw thousands of videos, cellphone pictures and social media accounts from the attack. And humanitarian organizations told stories of hospitals packed with people who had symptoms of poison gas.

Moreover, we know the Assad regime was responsible. In the days leading up to Aug. 21st, we know that Assad's chemical weapons personnel prepared for an attack near an area they where they mix sarin gas. They distributed gas masks to their troops. Then they fired rockets from a regime-controlled area into 11 neighborhoods that the regime has been trying to wipe clear of opposition forces.

Shortly after those rockets landed, the gas spread, and hospitals filled with the dying and the wounded. We know senior figures in Assad's military machine reviewed the results of the attack. And the regime increased their shelling of the same neighborhoods in the days that followed. We've also studied samples of blood and hair from people at the site that tested positive for sarin.

When dictators commit atrocities, they depend upon the world to look the other way until those horrifying pictures fade from memory. But these things happened. The facts cannot be denied.

The question now is what the United States of America and the international community is prepared to do about it, because what happened to those people, to those children, is not only a violation of international law, it's also a danger to our security.

Let me explain why. If we fail to act, the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons.

As the ban against these weapons erodes, other tyrants will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gas and using them. Over time our troops would again face the prospect of chemical warfare on the battlefield, and it could be easier for terrorist organizations to obtain these weapons and to use them to attack civilians.

If fighting spills beyond Syria's borders, these weapons could threaten allies like Turkey, Jordan and Israel.

And a failure to stand against the use of chemical weapons would weaken prohibitions against other weapons of mass destruction and embolden Assad's ally, Iran, which must decide whether to ignore international law by building a nuclear weapon or to take a more peaceful path.

This is not a world we should accept. This is what's at stake. And that is why, after careful deliberation, I determined that it is in the national security interests of the United States to respond to the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike. The purpose of this strike would be to deter Assad from using chemical weapons, to degrade his regime's ability to use them and to make clear to the world that we will not tolerate their use. That's my judgment as commander in chief.

But I'm also the president of the world's oldest constitutional democracy. So even though I possessed the authority to order military strikes, I believed it was right, in the absence of a direct or imminent threat to our security, to take this debate to Congress. I believe our democracy is stronger when the president acts with the support of Congress, and I believe that America acts more effectively abroad when we stand together.

This is especially true after a decade that put more and more war-making power in the hands of the president, and more and more burdens on the shoulders of our troops, while sidelining the people's representatives from the critical decisions about when we use force.

Now, I know that after the terrible toll of Iraq and Afghanistan, the idea of any military action, no matter how limited, is not going to be popular. After all, I've spent four and a half years working to end wars, not to start them. Our troops are out of Iraq, our troops are coming home from Afghanistan, and I know Americans want all of us in Washington, especially me, to concentrate on the task of building our nation here at home, putting people back to work, educating our kids, growing our middle class. It's no wonder, then, that you're asking hard questions. So let me answer some of the most important questions that I've heard from members of Congress and that I've read in letters that you've sent to me.

First, many of you have asked: Won't this put us on a slippery slope to another war? One man wrote to me that we are still recovering from our involvement in Iraq. A veteran put it more bluntly: This nation is sick and tired of war.

My answer is simple. I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria. I will not pursue an open-ended action like Iraq or Afghanistan. I will not pursue a prolonged air campaign like Libya or Kosovo. This would be a targeted strike to achieve a clear objective: deterring the use of chemical weapons and degrading Assad's capabilities.

Others have asked whether it's worth acting if we don't take out Assad. As some members of Congress have said, there's no point in simply doing a pinprick strike in Syria.

Let me make something clear: The United States military doesn't do pinpricks.

Even a limited strike will send a message to Assad that no other nation can deliver. I don't think we should remove another dictator with force. We learned from Iraq that doing so makes us responsible for all that comes next. But a targeted strike can make Assad or any other dictator think twice before using chemical weapons.

Other questions involve the dangers of retaliation. We don't dismiss any threats, but the Assad regime does not have the ability to seriously threaten our military. Any other — any other retaliation they might seek is in line with threats that we face every day. Neither Assad nor his allies have any interest in escalation that would lead to his demise. And our ally Israel can defend itself with overwhelming force, as well as the unshakable support of the United States of America.

Many of you have asked a broader question: Why should we get involved at all in a place that's so complicated and where, as one person wrote to me, those who come after Assad may be enemies of human rights? It's true that some of Assad's opponents are extremists. But al-Qaida will only draw strength in a more chaotic Syria if people there see the world doing nothing to prevent innocent civilians from being gassed to death. The majority of the Syrian people and the Syrian opposition we work with just want to live in peace, with dignity and freedom. And the day after any military action, we would redouble our efforts to achieve a political solution that strengthens those who reject the forces of tyranny and extremism.

Finally, many of you have asked, why not leave this to other countries or seek solutions short of force?

And several people wrote to me, we should not be the world's policeman. I agree. And I have a deeply held preference for peaceful solutions. Over the last two years my administration has tried diplomacy and sanctions, warnings and negotiations. But chemical weapons were still used by the Assad regime.

However, over the last few days we've seen some encouraging signs in part because of the credible threat of U.S. military action as well as constructive talks that I had with President Putin. The Russian government has indicated a willingness to join with the international community in pushing Assad to give up his chemical weapons. The Assad regime has now admitted that it has these weapons and even said they'd join the chemical weapons convention, which prohibits their use.

It's too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that the Assad regime keeps its commitments. But this initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force, particularly because Russia is one of Assad's strongest allies.

I have therefore asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force while we pursue this diplomatic path. I'm sending Secretary of State John Kerry to meet his Russian counterpart on Thursday, and I will continue my own discussions with President Putin. I've spoken to the leaders of two of our closest allies, France and the United Kingdom. And we will work together in consultation with Russia and China to put forward a resolution at the U.N. Security Council requiring Assad to give up his chemical weapons and to ultimately destroy them under international control.

We'll also give U.N. inspectors the opportunity to report their findings about what happened on Aug. 21st. And we will continue to rally support from allies, from Europe to the Americas, from Asia to the Middle East who agree on the need for action.

Meanwhile, I've ordered our military to maintain their current posture, to keep the pressure on Assad and to be in a position to respond if diplomacy fails. And tonight I give thanks again to our military and their families for their incredible strength and sacrifices.

My fellow Americans, for nearly seven decades the United States has been the anchor of global security. This has meant doing more than forging international agreements. It has meant enforcing them. The burdens of leadership are often heavy, but the world's a better place because we have borne them.

And so to my friends on the right, I ask you to reconcile your commitment to America's military might with a failure to act when a cause is so plainly just.

To my friends on the left, I ask you to reconcile your belief in freedom and dignity for all people with those images of children writhing in pain and going still on a cold hospital floor, for sometimes resolutions and statements of condemnation are simply not enough.

Indeed, I'd ask every member of Congress, and those of you watching at home tonight, to view those videos of the attack, and then ask: What kind of world will we live in if the United States of America sees a dictator brazenly violate international law with poison gas and we choose to look the other way? Franklin Roosevelt once said our national determination to keep free of foreign wars and foreign entanglements cannot prevent us from feeling deep concern when ideals and principles that we have cherished are challenged.

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. America is not the world's policeman. 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. That's what makes America different. That's what makes us exceptional.

With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.

Thank you. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.