Obama to give Syria diplomacy a last try

President Obama said yesterday he would seize one last diplomatic opening to avoid military strikes on Syria but made a forceful case for why the United States must retaliate for its alleged use of chemical weapons if the effort fails.

In a nationally televised address from the White House, Obama cautiously welcomed a Russian proposal that the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad give up its entire stockpile of chemical weapons, signaling that he would drop his call for a military assault on the regime if Assad complies.

But with little guarantee that diplomacy would prevail, Obama argued that the nation must be prepared to strike Assad. Facing a skeptical public and Congress, the war-weary president said the United States still carries the burden of using its military power to punish regimes that would flout long-held conventions banning the use of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

"If we fail to act, the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons," Obama said. "The purpose of a strike would be to deter Assad from using chemical weapons and make clear to the world we will not tolerate their use."

But the president added that he has "a deeply held preference for peaceful solutions" as he pledged to work with international partners to negotiate with Russia over a United Nations resolution on a Syria solution.

The speech was a plea from a president who, defying public opinion, has pushed the nation toward using American force in Syria -- and staked his and his nation's credibility on whether he can get Congress to support him. But it also capped two days of intense political and diplomatic negotiations on Capitol Hill and abroad that appear to have shifted his calculus for how quickly to move in Syria.

The president had visited Congress in the afternoon, asking senators in both parties to delay a vote that would allow him to order strikes on Syrian government targets in retaliation for the alleged chemical attack that reportedly killed more than 1,400 near Damascus.

A White House official said Obama spent an hour apiece with both the Democrat and Republican caucuses, reviewing evidence of the chemical attack and reiterating his decision to pursue a "limited, targeted" military strike that would not involve U.S. troops on the ground inside Syria.

But Obama also told lawmaker he would "spend the days ahead pursuing this diplomatic option with the Russians and our allies at the United Nations," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The White House announced that Obama spoke with French President François Holland and British Prime Minister David Cameron and that the three countries agreed to "explore seriously the viability of the Russian proposal."

The Russian offer could serve as a potential escape hatch for a president who has at times appeared reluctant to pursue military force, even after saying he believed it was the right course to reinforce a "red-line" against chemical weapons. Obama has struggled to build an international coalition for such action.

And with congressional and public support for U.S. strikes dwindling rapidly over the past week, Obama's request to delay the Senate vote also served to buy him time to convince the public that the White House is pursuing a viable and coherent strategy despite a muddled message since the alleged chemical attacks.