American Public Rejects War in Syria; Obama Urges Restraint, Iran Warns of Consequences

The American public has expressed real unwillingness to get involved in another costly conflict in the Middle East, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests. Only 9 percent of the surveyed believe President Barack Obama should take action on Syria, while some 60 percent of Americans said the United States should not intervene in Syria's bloody civil war.

According to the poll taken on August 19-23, 25 percent of Americans would back intervention if it is proven that the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against civilians, while almost double that number – 46 percent – would still oppose such a move. Iran has also lent its voice against any intervention in Syria.

Obama has discussed the latest developments in Syria with British PM David Cameron and both expressed grave concern over the alleged chemical attack. "They reiterated that significant use of chemical weapons would merit a serious response from the international community and both have tasked officials to examine all the options." President Obama has received the awaiting intelligence report with no specific details of the options but the emphasis on responses in the event of confirmation of chemical attacks.

US Secretary of Defence, Chuck Hagel, while speaking at a conference in Malaysia indicated that the US military is ready to exercise options on Syria, should Obama choose military action. “President Obama has asked the Defence Department to prepare options for all contingencies. We have done that and we are prepared to exercise whatever option - if he decides to employ one of those options," Hagel told reporters.

President Obama himself, however, has been cautious about intervention in Syria. In an interview with CNN, the president said the United States should be wary of “being drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually breed more resentment in the region.”

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has said that nearly 3,600 patients with neurotoxic symptoms were treated in three Damascus hospitals on the day a toxic gas attack was reported, while 355 patients were reportedly pronounced dead. Moscow has commented that it was monitoring events surrounding the alleged attack. “We’re getting more new evidence that this criminal act was of a provocative nature,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich, said in a statement.

“In particular, there are reports circulating on the Internet that the materials of the incident and accusations against government troops had been posted for several hours before the so-called attack. Thus, it was a pre-planned action,” he said.

The revelation by MSF happened within a week of a UN investigative team entering the country to examine three different sites of alleged chemical weapons usage. It was also just hours after UN disarmament chief, Angela Kane, arrived in the Syrian capital of Damascus to apply pressure on the Syrian government to grant access to the site of the reported attack in the Damascus suburbs.

Professor of International Law at Georgetown University, Daoud Khairallah, told RT that the US would not act without verifiable evidence.

“The US can’t take any action without verifiable evidence about who is the party who is responsible. If it turns out that it was the rebels that used this poisonous material, the US will be embarrassed because it will be the allies of US, the opposition the US has been supporting and claiming that these are people who are seeking democracy and rule of law in Syria.”

“The US would like to prove that it was the regime who has done this, but it has not been independently proved or verified and without independent verification I doubt that Obama will act. Obama did say that ‘we need to be sure who has used these weapons, evaluate the costs to the US both financially and morally, we need international approval.’”