American inaction on Syria is blatant. The Obama administration refused to honour its own ‘red line’ after Bashar Al Assad’s government gassed its own people, and the Americans did not follow through with the promised military strikes on Syrian military targets. This disregard for their own promises has told the Syrian people in the clearest possible way that the Americans do not care about their plight.
Therefore it is particularly outrageous for US Secretary of State John Kerry to say that “just days ago in London, I listened with sadness and shock as Ahmad Jarba … described how ordinary Syrians with no links to the civil war are forced to eat stray dogs and cats”. Kerry embarrassed both his office and the US presidency when he continued in his comment in the Views section of Gulf News that “the world cannot sit by watching innocents die”.
These ludicrous words come from the secretary of state in an administration that refused to act to punish a war crime. The US made a tragic mistake when it refused to act over the gassing of civilians, and it is particularly wrong that Kerry should now act as though he can ignore any culpability for that decision.
He should not both refuse to intervene, and the same time shed tears over the misery of the victims of the war.
