President Obama may be teetering on the edge of whether or not to strike against Syria, but the U.K. is saying the chemical attacks that killed thousands is justification enough.
British Prime Minister David Cameron had this to say during an emergency session of the House of Commons on Thursday:
“…The debate on Syria is about ‘how to respond to one of most abhorrent uses of chemical weapons in a century’ — not about regime change or invasion.”
“Put simply, is it in Britain’s national interest in maintaining an international taboo against the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield,” Cameron asked lawmakers. “I would say yes it is.”
But Cameron told members of the House of Commons that they would not act first without hearing from the U.N. weapons inspectors, giving the United Nations a chance to weigh in and Parliament to have another vote.
But, he said, failing ultimately to act would give Syrian President Bashar al-Assad the unmistakable signal that he could use such weapons “with impunity, Cameron said.
Noting 14 previous Syrian government uses of chemical weapons British intelligence says it has confirmed, Cameron said he believes al-Assad opted to increase the scale of his chemical attacks as a sort of test for the world.
“He wants to know whether the world will response to the use of these weapons,” Cameron said.
Meanwhile, Obama announced that the U.S. has concluded that the Syrian government carried out a deadly chemical weapons attack on civilians. He plans on sending a “strong signal” to Assad, but is still grappling with the idea of military retaliation.
