US And UK Ready To Strike Syria Without UN Approval

CBS News reported on Saturday that the Pentagon is preparing for a cruise missile attack on Syria. The final decision for a military strike will come directly from President Obama.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has said that moving the missiles into position will allow the President to act fast should he make the decision to intervene in the Syrian conflict.

Hagel didn’t mention Congress. This is strange considering Congress and only Congress has the authority to declare war on another nation. The President alone does not have the legal authority to do so without their approval.

Obama is probably empowered by the weekend phone calls to his British buddy David Cameron who agreed with the need:

‘To take strong action” (source)

UK foreign secretary William Hague said in a statement to the BBC:

 “We, the United States, many other countries including France, are clear that we can’t allow the idea in the 21st century that chemical weapons can be used with impunity,” he said.

“We’ve discussed over the last year the small-scale chemical attacks that the regime has carried out over the last year.

The foreign secretary repeated his assertion that the chemical attack was carried out by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and there was “no other plausible explanation”. (source)

Cameron will be feeling the pressure regarding the recall of Parliament from their summer break to discuss the Syrian crisis. Many MP’s have said they will not back the Prime Minister if the move is not approved by the UN Security Council.

Hague, on the other hand, has stated it would be possible for the UK and its allies to respond without the full backing of the United Nations and that the Security Council had not “shouldered its responsibilities”. (source)