As Congress returns to session today where it will debate and vote on a U.S. military response to chemical weapons use on innocent Syrian civilians, both Syria President Bashar al-Assad and our own Secretary of State John Kerry have issued stern warnings to each other essentially warning the other to discontinue their position or face the consequences.
Assad spoke with CBS This Morning‘s Charlie Rose, in an interview that will air tonight at 9pm ET on PBS, saying “You should expect everything. Not necessarily from the government” in terms of a retaliatory action in the case of a United States intervention. The statement could easily be taken as an allusion to Assad’s other allies in the Middle East region, notably Iran and Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah.
At a press conference across the pond in London, Kerry responded in refusal to back down bluntly telling Assad that to avoid facing the wrath of the American armed forces, “He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over. All of it, without delay. And allow the full and total accounting for that. But he isn’t about to do it.”
Assad has virtually denied the use of chemical weapons without saying so directly, claiming there’s no evidence that his government employed the use of sarin nerve gas on 1,429 unarmed civilians living in the suburbs of capital city Damascus on August 21.
Over 400 of those were children.
It’s important to consider that while Kerry and Congress claims to have evidence of Assad’s chemical weapons use, all that the American public has seen are the gruesome images of the aftermath, not Assad’s government pushing the buttons. Circumstantial evidence, though, points a finger directly at Assad. Congress is also privy to a classified debriefing, so it’s entirely possible they’re seeing things that we haven’t yet.
Assad continues to note that Russia, a thorn in the side of the U.S. that has blocked the UN Security Council from pursuing any resolutions of its own, has evidence pointing to the rebel opposition as the ones in possession of chemical weapons and that they ought to be held responsible for deploying them. The G-20 Summit last week in Russia’s culture capital of Saint Petersburg did little to temper the pressure mounting between those in favor and those against foreign intervention in Syria’s civil war.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has yet to take a hard stance on the situation, wavering between upholding that the U.S. will be going against the United Nations should it opt to intercede, and risking future allegiance from the western world.
United Kingdom’s Prime Minister David Cameron and France’s President François Hollande have both adamantly voiced their support of the U.S.’s aims in the war-ravaged country, though the UK Parliament voted against taking any action while France is portraying its leader Hollande as President Obama’s lackey in pop culture.
Be sure to catch Charlie Rose’s interview with Bashar al-Assad, which will air tonight at 9pm ET on PBS. Congress reconvenes today and President Obama will be making the media rounds in an attempt to gain public support before the bicameral legislature puts the issue to a final vote. Stay tuned to BostInno for the latest coverage on the Syria crisis.
