Obama Aims to Avoid Bush Pitfalls in Syria Strike

Ten years after George W. Bush brushed aside the U.N. Security Council to invade Iraq, U.S. President Barack Obama is poised to strike Syria without U.N. approval -- while insisting this time it's different.

With zero chance of the U.N. Security Council backing a British resolution calling for "measures" against Syria's President Bashar Assad, there is talk of a "coalition of the willing", reminiscent of the group gathered by Bush to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Russia, Assad's key ally, and China have seized upon similarities with the 2003 war launched on the basis of false intelligence.

Obama promised when he took power to seek greater international legitimacy. But the growing certainty of the United States, Britain and France that Assad allowed a devastating chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs last week has forced his hand.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who said the way Bush went to war was "a mistake" has called the suspected use of the banned weapons a "moral obscenity" for which someone must be held accountable.

"This time really is different," said Richard Gowan of New York University's Center on International Cooperation.

"Only a very determined conspiracy theorist would believe that Obama previously desired to get to this moment, in contrast to the Bush administration's all-too-clear intent to invade Iraq in 2003," he added.

In 2003, Germany and France opposed the Iraq war, while Britain backed Bush. This time the European powers are united. France's President Francois Hollande has invoked the international right to protect civilians.

But firing a cruise missile at Syria will be easier than getting accord among the Security Council's 15 members on ending the Syria conflict that has left more than 100,000 dead. Russia and China have vetoed three proposed council resolutions that would have increased pressure on Assad.

Britain is drawing up a new resolution to put to the council that will seek its backing to use "all necessary measures to protect civilians." Russia will no doubt block the move again, diplomats said.

"Russia and China will doubtless condemn any military action, but the United States can be fairly confident that it has a strong moral case for action against Syria. And Obama's previous restraint should help him argue that case internationally," Gowan said.

"The U.N. Security Council is not the sole or unique custodian about what is legal and what is legitimate," said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank and a former senior U.S. diplomat.

"It would allow in this case a country like Russia to be the arbiter of international law and more broadly international relations." The United States cannot allow this, he added.

Haass said any military action must be to back Obama's vow that Assad's use of banned chemical weapons of mass destruction was crossing "a red line."

"My sense is that the administration is trying to find something of a halfway house. Something that is large enough to reinforce the norm against WMD use, something that is large enough to make a statement about red lines credible, at the same time something that is not so large or so open-ended in any way that it makes the United States a de facto protagonist in the civil war."

The Security Council was also bypassed when NATO launched air strikes to halt Serbia's assault on Kosovo in 1999. And Haass said the United States and its allies could again "demonstrate a degree of multi-lateralism" through NATO, Arab countries who oppose Assad and others.

"You could put together some kind of a coalition of the willing," he said, predicting that dozens of countries could join.

Some countries have expressed caution however.

Carl Bildt, Sweden's foreign minister, said an attempt must be made for U.N. Security Council action and that it was "important" to see a report by the U.N. inspectors investigating the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

"I would like to see some kind of formal proof that chemical weapons were used before action is launched," said one U.N. ambassador from a close U.S. ally.

"Obama will find that international support for U.S. military action will fade very quickly if he shifts from limited, punitive actions related to the use of chemical weapons to pursuing regime change," warned Gowan.