Americans oppose Syria intervention, as West mulls ‘serious response’

Americans oppose Syria intervention, as West mulls ‘serious response’

As Obama’s advisers have presented options for responding to an alleged chemical attack in Syria, the US president and British PM agreed on Saturday that “use of chemical weapons would merit a serious response.”

However, the American public shows no willingness to get involved in another costly conflict in the Middle East, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests.

Only 9 percent of the surveyed believe President Barack Obama should take action on Syria, while some 60 percent of Americans said the United States should not intervene in Syria's bloody civil war.

According to the poll taken on August 19-23, 25 percent of Americans would back intervention if it is proven that the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against civilians, while almost double that number – 46 percent – would still oppose such a move.

Obama discussed the latest developments in Syria with British PM David Cameron on Saturday and both expressed grave concern over the alleged Wednesday attack. "They reiterated that significant use of chemical weapons would merit a serious response from the international community and both have tasked officials to examine all the options," said a spokesperson for Cameron.

On Saturday, Obama received a "detailed review of a range of potential options" he requested his advisers to prepare for the US and the international community to respond to the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria.
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Moscow has commented that it was monitoring events surrounding the alleged attack. “We’re getting more new evidence that this criminal act was of a provocative nature,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich, said in a statement on Friday.

“In particular, there are reports circulating on the Internet that the materials of the incident and accusations against government troops had been posted for several hours before the so-called attack. Thus, it was a pre-planned action,” he said.

Professor of International Law at Georgetown University, Daoud Khairallah, told RT that the US would not act without verifiable evidence.

“The US can’t take any action without verifiable evidence about who is the party who is responsible. If it turns out that it was the rebels that used this poisonous material, the US will be embarrassed because it will be the allies of US, the opposition the US has been supporting and claiming that these are people who are seeking democracy and rule of law in Syria.”

[link to rt.com]