WASHINGTON
US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday that the debate regarding military strikes against Syria was about the world’s and humanity's redline, and that the redline is one which ought to be drawn by anyone with a conscience.
Kerry told Congress that the debate was also about the redline of the US Congress itself.
"We can tell you beyond any reasonable doubt that our evidence proves the Assad regime prepared for this attack, issued instructions to prepare for this attack, warned its own forces to use gas masks. We have physical evidence of where the rockets came from and when. Not one rocket landed in regime-controlled territory. Not one. All of them landed in opposition-controlled or contested territory. We have a map, physical evidence, showing every geographical point of impact – and that is concrete," he said. "As we debate and the world watches, as you decide and the world wonders- not whether Assad’s regime executed the worst chemical-weapons attack of the 21st century; that fact I think is now beyond question – the world wonders whether the US will consent, through silence, to standing aside while this kind of brutality is allowed to happen without consequence."
Kerry noted that there were "two tyrants who dared to cross the world’s brightest line," and that Bashar al-Assad had become the third in nearly 100 years by using chemical weapons against civilians.
He stressed that Congress was facing an important decision and that the world was waiting to learn about it in the soming days.
When asked why the US should care, he said, "we cannot overlook the impact of chemical weapons and the danger that they pose to a particularly volatile area of the world in which we’ve been deeply invested for years, because we have great friends there, we have allies there, we have deep interests there."
He furthermore stated: "Since President Obama’s policy is that Assad must go, it is not insignificant that to deprive him of the capacity to use chemical weapons or to degrade the capacity to use those chemical weapons actually deprives him of a lethal weapon in this ongoing civil war, and that has an impact. That can help to stabilize the region, ultimately," he said. "In addition, we have other important strategic national security interests, not just in the prevention of the proliferation of chemical weapons, but to avoid the creation of a safe haven in Syria or a base of operations for extremists to use these weapons against our friends. All of us know that the extremes of both sides are there waiting in the wings, working and pushing and fighting. They’d be desperate to get their hands on these materials."
Kerry emphasized that if an intervention were not undertaken, the region could become an ungoverned area where "those extremists" threaten the US, and allies and friends of the US like Jordan or Israel or Lebanon or others.
"Our allies and our partners are also counting on us in this situation. The people of Israel, of Jordan, of Turkey each look next door and they see that they’re one stiff breeze away from the potential of being hurt, their civilians being killed as a consequence of choices Assad might take in the absence of action. They anxiously await our assurance that our word means something. They await the assurance that if the children lined up in unbloodied burial shrouds were their own children, that we would keep the world’s promise. That’s what they’re hoping," he said.
He also added that President Obama was not asking America to go to war, and that the US had no intention of assuming responsibility for Syria’s civil war but was asking for authorization to degrade and deter Assad’s capacity to use chemical weapons.
"Even Assad’s supporters, Russia and Iran, say publicly that the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable. Now, some will also question the extent of our responsibility. To them, I say when someone kills hundreds of children with a weapon the world has banned, we are all responsible," Kerry said. "Neither our country nor our conscience can afford the cost of silence. We have spoken up against unspeakable horror many times in the past. Now, we must stand up and act, and we must protect our security, protect our values, and lead the world with conviction that is clear about our responsibility."
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