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BREAKING: Obama speaking - will take decision to US Congress. Attack delayed and US inspection has chance to report. Caution by US President. A wise move.

Invoking International Law Against Obama: Old Europe, New Europe and NeoCon Fail

(Informed Comment) - Caretaker Czech Prime minister Jiri Rusnok and president Milos Zeman have denounced President Obama's plans to bomb Syria not just as unwise but as actually illegal.

In the United Nations Charter, which the US crafted and to which it is a signatory, there are only two grounds for going to war: self-defense and a UN Security Council resolution designating a country as a threat to world order. President Obama has neither consideration on his side in bombing Syria, though he did seem to make an argument that the use of chemical weapons anywhere is a de facto threat to all other nations, edging toward a rather implausible assertion of US self defense in Ghuta. The US political class either hasn't read the UN charter or actively despises it, and if they were honest they would revoke their treaty obligations.

That the Security Council does it work illustrates the Mali episode of a complex domestic situation with a military coup, dealing with the junta, getting a UN Security Council resolution, French Army going in ahead of the UN Forces due to imminent humanitarian crisis, the UN African nations going into Mali to battle the Islamic insurgents in the North and presently Chinese UN troops on the ground.

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Yang ruled out the rumours of 'combat forces' in UN peacekeeping forces [Xinhua]

It's the issue at hand, Syria, and US intransigence to come together doing some old-fashioned diplomacy. France was just trying to get some extra bonus points from Obama and King Abdullah ... even Old Europe is opposed.

'Sapere aude'

It does put paid to the crackpot conspiracy theory, advanced by the regime and the Russians, that the rebels gassed themselves.

Not really. It may well be a case of all of the above, where the Syrians are mixing in a bit of Sarin here and there to terrorize the rebels, where the Saudi's are supplying poisonous chemicals that are not actually any known form of chemical warfare agent and that some might have been triggered by Syrian missile hits and some have been part of an intended and reasonably successful false flag operation.

Many things are possible and it will not be easy or, necessarily even possible, to determine clearly what actually did happen. The problem remains that the Obama administration will seize on ANY evidence of Syrian complicity and ignore ANY evidence of Saudi complicity. Another remaining problem is that there is no clear path to an acceptable end state for this ongoing calamity. So, probably, all will effectively agree to do the stupidest and most damaging things possible.    

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."