United States

The decision not to respond militarily in Syria

However, despite British intelligence assessments that chemical weapons had been used in the incident on August 21 and that it was “highly likely” that the Assad regime had been responsible, on August 29 Parliament voted against endorsing Cameron’s call for military intervention in principle. The next day, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the United States had “high certainty” that chemical weapons had been used and that government forces had carried out the attack. After indicating that U.S. military response would be forthcoming, even without British involvement, Obama shifted gears on August 31 and asked for congressional authorization for military action while awaiting the findings of UN weapons inspectors who had returned from Damascus after examining the site of the attack. Released on September 16, their report indicated that there was “clear and convincing evidence” that the nerve agent sarin had been delivered by surface-to-surface rockets; however, it did not attempt to assess responsibility for the attack. Two days earlier the United States and Russia, a key supporter of the Assad regime, had brokered an agreement on a framework under which Syria would accede to the international Chemical Weapons Convention and submit to the controls of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, provide a comprehensive listing of its chemical weapons arsenal within a week, destroy all of its chemical mixing and filling equipment by November, and eliminate all of its chemical weapons by mid-2014.