Despite the fact the international community has yet to come to a clear conclusion on Syria's alleged use of chemical weapons, an analyst said Wednesday that the US will not take military action against the Syrian government, even though speculation has indicated this may be a possibility.
"The US will not take military action against the Syrian government and it is unlikely Obama would stand together with the Al Qaeda terrorists that have deeply divided the opposition," Yin Gang, a researcher at the Institute of West Asian and African Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times Wednesday.
US President Barack Obama signaled on Tuesday that he is in no rush to respond quickly to Syria's apparent use of chemical weapons. Obama is reportedly considering supplying weapons to the Syrian opposition, but senior White House officials say the president has not yet made a decision, and instead has asked his national security team to identify ways the US can increase its assistance. So far, that aid has been limited to non-lethal support.
Speaking at a news conference in the White House after days of ambiguous rhetoric from Washington, Obama said that he did not yet believe there was sufficient evidence to trace the use of chemical weapons back to President Assad's government. He appealed for patience, however, saying he needed more conclusive evidence about how and when chemical weapons detected by US intelligence agencies were used and who deployed them.
"What we now have is evidence that chemical weapons have been used inside of Syria, but we don't know how they were used, when they were used, who used them," Obama said, adding "We don't have a chain of custody that establishes what exactly happened."
Earlier Obama made his clearest threat yet of international action against Syria, that he would consider military action if it was confirmed that President Bashar Assad's government used chemical weapons in the country's two-year-old civil war, which the UN says has killed more than 70,000 people.
Yin said the US government would be extremely careful on this issue because the lessons from the Iraq war are still fresh. "If the US government takes the kind of action they took in 2003, the result in Syria would be much worse."
The Damascus government and the rebels have each accused the other of using the banned weapons, and Obama said proof of their systematic use by the Syrian military would be a "game changer" for US involvement in the conflict.
While a UN spokesman said that the UN does not have the agreement it needs for the UN fact-finding mission on Syria's alleged use of chemical weapons, the Syrian National Coalition, the umbrella opposition group recognized by the West, is calling on the UN Security Council to allow its inspectors in Cyprus to search for signs of chemical weapons.
"We have confirmed reports from a number of countries in the world that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons on a limited scale, but it is seriously preparing for repeat use on a large scale, and the world must act before a major disaster occurs, not afterwards," the opposition said in a statement.
Syria's UN ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said Tuesday that the use of chemical weapons is not only "a red line" but "a blood line" that cannot be tolerated and again demanded a UN investigation of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Aleppo that it blames on rebels. In August last year, Obama defined the use of chemical weapons as a "red line" that would prompt US action.
Yin told the Global Times that such hints of potential military action were intended for terrorists.
"The Arab League, who wants to oppose the Shia muslim sect, has tacitly given consent to the opposition and even the terrorists. The US will not take immediate and aggressive actions on Syria's civil war, which means it's impossible the war will end in the near future, regardless of military or diplomatic efforts," Yin said.
Global Times- Agencies