Putin gets tough ( Archived) (62)

Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin set for collision over Syria at G20 summit

Russian president signals he will take action if America strikes at Assad as US counterpart admits relations have hit a wall

World leaders will gather in St Petersburg on Thursday for what has transformed into an international showdown with Vladimir Putin threatening to send a missile shield to Syria if the US launches an attack without the authority of the United Nations.

The G20 summit, hosted by Putin, had been expected to focus on the world economy and growth, but will now be dominated by the Middle East crisis, even if the formal agenda remains fixed on the slowdown of growth in emerging markets.

Barack Obama, speaking during a stopover in Sweden before the summit, denied his political credibility was at stake but admitted relations with Russia had hit a wall. He insisted he had not set the red lines requiring a military response if the Syrian government deployed chemical weapons.

"The world set a red line when governments representing 98% of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons was abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use even when countries are engaged in war," he said. "That was not something I just kind of made up, I did not pluck it out of thin air."

He added: "My credibility is not on the line. The international community's credibility is on the line because we give lip service to the notion that these international norms are important.

"Keep in mind, I'm somebody who opposed the war in Iraq, and I'm not interested in repeating mistakes about basing decisions on faulty intelligence," the US president said at a news conference in Stockholm.

On Tuesday Obama portrayed his plans for US military action as part of a broader strategy to topple Bashar al-Assad, as the White House's campaign to win over sceptics in Congress gained momentum.

Putin, in an interview published on Wednesday, said it was too early to talk about what Russia would do if the US attacked Syria but added: "We have our ideas about what we will do and how we will do it in case the situation develops toward the use of force or otherwise. We have our plans."

He then said Russia might restart Syria's suspended S-300 air defence missile contract. Describing the weapon as "very efficient", he said: "If we see that steps are taken that violate the existing international norms, we shall think how we should act in the future, in particular regarding supplies of such sensitive weapons to certain regions of the world."

The statement could also be a veiled threat to revive a contract for the delivery of the S-300s to Iran, which Russia cancelled a few years ago under strong US and Israeli pressure.

But Obama arrives at the summit with his hand strengthened by the growing impression that he will win the support of Congress next week to take military action. In signs that the political tide was slowly turning Obama's way in Washington, US senators on an important committee yesterday agreed on a draft resolution backing the use of US military force in Syria. The Senate foreign relations committee passed an amended resolution to authorise military action. It authorises strikes against the Syrian regime within a 60-day window, extendable to 90 days, as requested by the White House.

But it also includes tougher wording introduced by the hawkish Republican senator John McCain, which makes it "the policy of the United States to change the momentum on the battlefield in Syria".

Obama also retains the support of the French and the personal backing of David Cameron, even though the British government is now debarred from joining any action owing to last week's mishandled Commons vote.

Rey Yahoo.

It is probably in Americas best interest to wait for a UN mandate,
if that happens at all. Russian leaders have a history of "Rattling the Sabre". The use of chemical weapons must not be tolerated by
the world at large.

Its not the Americans job to police other countries.
This is a matter for the UN to deal with.

If Obama wants to strike against Syria he must first declare war against them.

Ignoring world democracy in the fight for world democracy ...... I just don't get it...

Britain has acted in a democratic way and the peoples representatives voted against action without clear evidence of Assad's part in the deployment of agents.

America must make a watertight case against Assad, and present it to the world. Let's not have another WMD fiasco.

The democratic vote Britain too was quite clearly a voice of the will of the nation, Cameron could go against it by using the Royal prerogative, but he won't, because it would bring down the government.