Obama Stymied in Bid to Rally World Leaders on Syria Strike
By PETER BAKER and STEVEN LEE MYERS
President Obama emerged from the G-20 meeting with a few supporters, but
no consensus as other leaders urged him not to attack Syria without
United Nations backing.
Latest Updates on Syria
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Obama Discusses Syria at the G-20 Summit:
In St. Petersburg, President Obama continued to hold his ground on
Syria. He also said he intended to make his case in an address Tuesday
to the American people.
By PETER BAKER and STEVEN LEE MYERS
Published: September 6, 2013
STRELNA, Russia — President Obama ran into an impasse on Friday in his
bid to rally international backing for a military strike on Syria as
world leaders wrapped up a summit meeting here remaining deeply divided
over the right response to what the Americans have called the deadliest
nerve gas attack in decades.
Tracking the Syrian Crisis
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After a dinner debate that lasted into the early morning hours of
Friday, Mr. Obama emerged with a few supporters but no consensus, as
other leaders urged him not to attack without United Nations permission,
which is not forthcoming. Instead, the president had to resign himself
to generalized statements of concern over the use of chemical weapons.
Even France, which has offered the strongest support to Mr. Obama of the
European allies, on Friday said that it would not strike Syria as part
of a coalition until the United Nations completes its work on assessing
the suspected use of chemical weapons in Syria. Ban Ki-moon, the United
Nations secretary general, has declined to specify when the results will
be known.
The failure to forge a stronger coalition here in the face of opposition
from the Russian host, President Vladimir V. Putin, raised the risks
even further for Mr. Obama as he headed home to lobby Congress to give
him the backing his international peers would not. It also left Mr.
Obama in the awkward position of defending his right to take action
largely alone if necessary after campaigning against what he portrayed
as the unilateralist foreign policy of his predecessor, George W. Bush.
Mr. Obama acknowledged that he had a “hard sell” with Congress and
announced that he would deliver a televised address to the nation
Tuesday evening from the White House.
“Failing to respond to this breach of this international norm would send
a signal to rogue nations, authoritarian regimes and terrorist
organizations that they can use W.M.D. and not pay a consequence,” he
said at a news conference, using the initials for weapons of mass
destruction. “And that’s not a world we want to live in.”
But much of the world, at least as represented at the Group of 20
meeting here in this St. Petersburg suburb, did not favor Mr. Obama’s
proposed course of action. Mr. Putin said a majority of the leaders
joined him in opposing a military strike independent of United Nations
approval, including those from Argentina, Brazil, China, Germany, India,
Indonesia, Italy and South Africa.
Citing remarks by Jacob Zuma, the South African president, Mr. Putin
said: “ 'Small countries in today’s world in general are feeling
increasingly vulnerable and unprotected. There is an impression any
superpower at any moment at its discretion may use force.’ And he’s
right.”
The only countries that supported Mr. Obama’s plan, the Russian leader
said, were Canada, France, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, all nations that
were on Mr. Obama’s side when he arrived here on Thursday.
Trying to counter the impression of isolation, the White House arranged
for a joint statement including those allies as well as Australia,
Britain, Italy, Japan, Spain and South Korea condemning the Aug. 21
chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus,
which according to American intelligence agencies, killed more than
1,400 people.
“We call for a strong international response to this grave violation of
the world’s rules and conscience that will send a clear message that
this kind of atrocity can never be repeated,” the statement said. “Those
who perpetrated these crimes must be held accountable.” Still, the
statement did not explicitly endorse military action.
But Mr. Putin pointed to a statement issued by Pope Francis on Thursday
opposing military strikes and cited polls showing that the citizens of
most countries, including the United States, also did not favor an
American-led strike. “I can assure you — and the latest polls say this
as well — the overwhelming majority of the populations in these
countries is on our side,” he said, his voice rising combatively.
Even as Mr. Putin ardently argued against an American-led intervention,
Russia’s Navy continued preparations in the event of an attack. It has
already dispatched at least four warships to the Mediterranean Sea,
including three that passed through the Bosporus on Thursday, two
landing ships and a destroyer.
Russian news agencies on Friday reported that additional ships would
join the armada, but not until later in September. Mr. Putin’s chief of
staff, Sergei B. Ivanov, told reporters that the landing vessels were
being sent in case it was necessary to evacuate Russian citizens from
Syria.
Russia’s deputy defense minister, Anatoly I. Antonov, said on Thursday
that while the ships were “an attempt to deter other forces that are
ready to launch military actions in the region,” they did not intend to
intervene against American and other NATO warships that have also
assembled in the region. “We don’t intend, either directly or
indirectly, to take part in a possible regional conflict,” he said,
according to the Web site of the Ministry of Defense.
Speaking with reporters as he was about to end his three-day overseas
trip, Mr. Obama repeatedly refused to say whether he would abide by the
Congressional vote he asked for authorizing the use of force against
Syria if lawmakers say no.
“You’re not getting any direct response,” he said. But Antony Blinken,
his principal deputy national security adviser, told NPR that while the
president maintains that he has the authority to act regardless of
Congress, “it’s neither his desire nor his intention to use that
authority absent Congress backing him.”
The Syria dispute came to dominate the G-20 meeting and underscored the
difficulty Mr. Obama has faced with Mr. Putin in recent months. After
Russia gave temporary asylum to Edward J. Snowden, the National Security
Agency contractor who disclosed secret American surveillance programs,
Mr. Obama canceled a separate one-on-one meeting with Mr. Putin in
Moscow.
But the two ended up talking on the sideline of the group session on
Friday, mainly about their disagreement over Syria. Mr. Obama said Mr.
Snowden’s case did not really come up. “It was a candid and constructive
conversation, which characterizes my relationship with him,” Mr. Obama
said.
For his part, Mr. Putin said the two leaders agreed to disagree during a
friendly encounter on Thursday that lasted more than 20 minutes.
“We hear each other and understand the arguments,” he said. “We simply
don’t agree with them. I don’t agree with his arguments and he doesn’t
agree with mine, but we hear and try to analyze.”
He added that they did agree that Syria ultimately needed a political
settlement, and delegated the question to Russia’s foreign minister,
Sergey V. Lavrov, and Secretary of State John Kerry. In May, the two
officials announced an effort to begin negotiations for a settlement in
Syria, to be held in Geneva, but that effort has since stalled and now
seems further away than ever.
The president said he appreciated that Mr. Putin had allowed a full
airing of views about Syria at the dinner on Thursday. By several
accounts, it was a vigorous discussion in which Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin
in effect were competing for support. Mr. Obama emerged having changed
no one’s mind about military force, but most of the leaders at least
agreed with his assessment that the government of Bashar al-Assad, the
Syrian president, was responsible for the attack, something Mr. Putin
has dismissed as “utter nonsense.”
“I’ve been encouraged by my discussions with my fellow leaders this
week,” Mr. Obama said Friday. “There is a growing recognition that the
world cannot stand idly by.”
But he acknowledged the deep reservations over the use of force and said
he reminded the leaders at the dinner that he had opposed Mr. Bush’s
invasion of Iraq in 2003. “I was elected to end wars, not start them,”
Mr. Obama said he told them. “I’m not itching for military action.”
In addition to the talk with Mr. Putin, Mr. Obama held more formal
meetings with the leaders of Brazil, China, France, Japan and Mexico.
His session with President François Hollande of France was his one
meeting with an unalloyed supporter of military action against Syria.
“Doing nothing would mean impunity,” Mr. Hollande told reporters, “and
there would be a risk of repeating, so we must take responsibility.”
Mr. Hollande has called forcefully for intervention and spoken with
certitude about Mr. Assad’s responsibility for the chemical attack.
France has no intention of intervening without an international
coalition, however, and Mr. Hollande has been obliged to await the
Congressional vote before taking action of any kind. On Friday, he
announced that France would also await the findings of United Nations
weapons inspectors who visited the site of the Aug. 21 attack.
“We’re now going to wait for the decision by Congress,” Mr. Hollande
said, “then the inspectors’ report. And in light of these elements, I
will, here again, have to take decisions.”
Mr. Hollande offered no explanation for his decision to await the United
Nations findings, but French lawmakers have in recent days increasingly
called for him to do so.
The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, tried to dissuade Mr. Obama from the
use of force during their talk on Friday, said Benjamin J. Rhodes,
deputy national security adviser. “We’ve obviously had a difference with
China on this issue,” he said.
President Obama’s conversations with President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil
and President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico were intended to smooth over
consternation in both countries about reports, based on Mr. Snowden’s
leaks, that the National Security Agency eavesdropped on both leaders’
telephone calls, e-mails and text messages.
Ms. Rousseff told reporters afterward that Mr. Obama promised an
investigation, but she held out the possibility that she might cancel a
trip to Washington scheduled for next month. Mr. Peña Nieto told BBC
that he also got a promise of an inquiry into the allegations and that
Mr. Obama committed “to impose corresponding sanctions” if they were
true.
While White House officials said that tension did not influence the Syria debate, neither leader backed military action.
Mr. Obama also made a point before leaving town of meeting with nine
Russian activists to show support for groups and individuals who have
come under pressure from Mr. Putin’s government. Among them was a leader
from a gay rights group, raising an issue that has grown especially
sensitive in Europe and the United States since Russia outlawed pro-gay
“propaganda” this summer.
But Mr. Obama had no critical words for Mr. Putin or his government
during his comments in front of news cameras, instead focusing on his
own history as a community organizer and offering general statements
about the value of free press, independent opposition and civil society.
Mr. Obama was scheduled to land back in Washington on Friday night as he
braced for what advisers consider one of the most critical
Congressional debates of his presidency.
“I knew this was going to be a heavy lift,” he said. “I was under no
illusions when I embarked on this path. But I think it’s the right thing
to do. I think it’s good for our democracy. We will be more effective
if we are unified going forward.”
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