U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that America was confident the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapon attack near Damascus last week, BBC News reported. Obama said the use of chemical weapons affected the United States' national interests, raising the specter of whether military strikes on Bashar al-Assad's regime may be imminent. The U.S. President however reiterated that he has yet to make a decision about whether to intervene militarily in the two-year civil war, which has killed over 100,000 people, United Nations' estimates revealed.
On Wednesday, multilateral diplomacy failed, as Britain, the United States' main ally, pushed for the Security Council to adopt a resolution which would authorize measures to protect Syrian civilians. Russia, a chief Syrian backer, vetoed the resolution, leading to a collapse of talks at the U.N. The Russians claim there is yet ample evidence Assad's government orchestrated last week's chemical weapons attack.
The U.S. State Department criticized "Russian intransigence," leaving analysts to analyze whether the U.S., Britain and France will try and organize a "coalition of the willing," rather than getting going through the U.N. to attack Assad's military bases.
The Assad government denied it used chemical weapons, blaming opposition "terrorists" for the attack on August 21, which reportedly killed hundreds of people near Damascus.
"There need to be international consequences, so we are consulting with our allies," President Obama said on PBS.
American opinion polls are extremely low for any sort of military intervention in Syria, as the U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner demanded the president explain "the intended effect of military strikes." Boehner added that there has yet been enough consultation to secure backing from Congress for any sort of military intervention.
Britian lawmakers concluded that the U.N. Security Council must seek additional findings by chemical weapons inspectors stationed in Syria before deciding support any kind of military action against Assad.
"The United Nations Security Council must have the opportunity immediately to consider that briefing and that every effort should be made to secure a Security Council Resolution backing military action before any such action is taken," the British motion read, which will be debated on Thursday.
Israel, meanwhile, ordered a small-scale mobilisation of reservists on Wednesday and strengthened its missile defences as precautions against a possible Syrian attack should Western powers carry out their threatened strikes on Syria, Reuters reported.
