Your Syria War Drums Update

First we have to note that British PM David Cameron just lost a parliamentary vote to authorize action, so we would have to do this without our poodle:

Invoking the specter of the Iraq war, British lawmakers on Thursday rejected military action in Syria, dealing a stunning blow to Prime Minister David Cameron and effectively ruling Washington’s staunchest military ally out of any U.S.-led strike.

After a marathon eight-hour debate, Cameron lost a vote that was initially seen as a symbolic motion setting up a final vote in the days ahead authorizing force against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime for allegedly using chemical weapons. But the surprise loss of even the weaker piece of legislation — by a vote of 285 to 272, including a group of rebels from Cameron’s Conservative Party in opposition — appeared to cost the United States its centerpiece ally in a still-forming coalition. The rejection additionally signaled what analysts called the biggest rupture in the U.S.-British “special relationship” since the 1982 Falklands war.

Technically, Cameron could still authorize military strikes over the objection of Parliament, but top government officials — including the prime minister himself — indicated that was not an option following Thursday’s defeat.

While a revolt of his own party doomed the vote, it appears that most of Cameron's vitriol was directed at opposition leader Ed Miliband:

A Downing Street spokesperson said the letter to the cabinet secretary was "completely over the top". The spokesperson said: "Labour's reaction is completely over the top. The No 10 press people were asked if the lack of an international response could give succour to the regime and they agreed with that. They did not mention Ed Miliband by name."

Miliband was already angry after a government source used expletives overnight to criticise Miliband. A government source told the Times on Wednesday night: "No 10 and the Foreign Office think Miliband is a f%$#ing c%$# and a copper-bottomed sh%$."

(emphasis, and "%$#" mine)

As an aside, I really appreciate the honesty of British politics over the dishonest civility of the our political tradition.

BTW, it now appears that sources in the administration are walking back from their initial claims that they have ironclad proof against the Assad regime:

The intelligence linking Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle to an alleged chemical weapons attack that killed at least 100 people is no “slam dunk,” with questions remaining about who actually controls some of Syria’s chemical weapons stores and doubts about whether Assad himself ordered the strike, U.S. intelligence officials say.

President Barack Obama declared unequivocally Wednesday that the Syrian government was responsible, while laying the groundwork for an expected U.S. military strike.

“We have concluded that the Syrian government in fact carried these out,” Obama said in an interview with “NewsHour” on PBS. “And if that’s so, then there need to be international consequences.”

However, multiple U.S. officials used the phrase “not a slam dunk” to describe the intelligence picture — a reference to then-CIA Director George Tenet’s insistence in 2002 that U.S. intelligence showing Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was a “slam dunk” — intelligence that turned out to be wrong.

This might explain why the Obama administration has been trying to shut down the UN investigation of the attack, they are afraid that, after their unequivocal public statements, they will be shown up as fools:

After initially insisting that Syria give United Nations investigators unimpeded access to the site of an alleged nerve gas attack, the administration of President Barack Obama reversed its position on Sunday and tried unsuccessfully to get the U.N. to call off its investigation.

The administration’s reversal, which came within hours of the deal reached between Syria and the U.N., was reported by the Wall Street Journal Monday and effectively confirmed by a State Department spokesperson later that day.

In his press appearance Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry, who intervened with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to call off the investigation, dismissed the U.N. investigation as coming too late to obtain valid evidence on the attack that Syrian opposition sources claimed killed as many 1,300 people.

The sudden reversal and overt hostility toward the U.N. investigation, which coincides with indications that the administration is planning a major military strike against Syria in the coming days, suggests that the administration sees the U.N. as hindering its plans for an attack.

Kerry asserted Monday that he had warned Syrian Foreign Minister Moallem last Thursday that Syria had to give the U.N. team immediate access to the site and stop the shelling there, which he said was “systematically destroying evidence”. He called the Syria-U.N. deal to allow investigators unrestricted access “too late to be credible”.

After the deal was announced on Sunday, however, Kerry pushed Ban in a phone call to call off the investigation completely.

BTW, the idea that it is "too late" to collect evidence is complete crap.

There should be evidence for months. Sarin decays quickly, but the decay products should remain in the environment for weeks, if not months, depending on the quality of its manufacture.

FWIW, even though Kerry could not get the inspectors stopped, they are ending their mission a day early, probably because they were told that if the didn't, they would be in the path of cruise missile strikes.

BTW, even the state department admits that, even if the Syrian military initiated the attack, it may have been outside of the normal chain of command:

With the United States barreling toward a strike on Syria, U.S. officials say they are completely certain that Bashar al-Assad's government is responsible for last week's chemical weapons attack. They just don't know who in the Syrian government is to blame.

On Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf admitted as much. "The commander-in-chief of any military is ultimately responsible for decisions made under their leadership, even if ... he's not the one that pushes the button or said, 'Go,' on this," Harf said. "I don't know what the facts are here. I'm just, broadly speaking, saying that he is responsible for the actions of his regime. I'm not intimately familiar with the command and control structure of the Syrian military. I'm just not. But again, he is responsible ultimately for the decisions that are made."

On Tuesday, The Cable reported that U.S. officials are basing their assessment that the Assad regime bears responsibility for the strike largely on an intercepted phone call between a panicked Ministry of Defense official and a commander of a Syrian chemical weapons unit. But that intelligence does not resolve the question of who in the government ordered the strike or what kind of command and control structures are in place for the use of such weapons. "It's unclear where control lies," one U.S. intelligence official told The Cable Tuesday. "Is there just some sort of general blessing to use these things? Or are there explicit orders for each attack?"

BTW, THIS should scare the hell out of everyone.

Using chemical weapons is pretty bad, but losing control of your chemical weapons stockpile is terrifying.

I agree with Saleh Muslim, who is head of the primary Kurdish party in Syria, when he said, "The regime in Syria ... has chemical weapons, but they wouldn't use them around Damascus, 5 km from the (U.N.) committee which is investigating chemical weapons. Of course they are not so stupid as to do so."