St Petersburg - Russian president Vladimir Putin signals he will take action if America strikes at President Bashar al-Assad as US counterpart admits relations have hit a wallWorld leaders will gather in St Petersburg on Thursday for what has been transformed into an international showdown with Vladimir Putin threatening to send a missile shield to Syria if the US launches an attack without the authority of the United Nations.
Leaders will meet in St Petersburg amid sharp differences over possible US military action against Damascus, in response to what the US administration calls a deadly chemical weapons attack.
The G20 summit, hosted by Putin, had been expected to focus on the world economy and growth, but will now be dominated by the Syrian crisis, even if the formal agenda remains fixed on the slowdown of growth in emerging markets.
Assuming the U.S. Congress authorises an attack on Syria, Washington will launch military strikes against Syrian regime targets. If so, it will have taken such action for reasons largely divorced from the interests of the Syrian people. The Obama administration has cited the need to punish, deter and prevent use of chemical weapons and degrade Damascus regime military capability. The administration also refers to the need, given President Obama's asserted "redline" against use of chemical weapons, to protect Washington's credibility - again an understandable objective though unlikely to resonate much with Syrians. Quite apart from talk of outrage, deterrence and restoring US credibility, the priority must be the welfare of the Syrian people. Whether or not military strikes are ordered, this only can be achieved through imposition of a sustained ceasefire and widely accepted political transition.
Barack Obama, speaking during a stopover in Sweden before the summit, denied his political credibility was at stake, "my credibility is not on the line. The international community's credibility is on the line because we give lip service to the notion that these international norms are important", he said.
He also admitted that relations with Russia had hit a wall. He insisted he had not set the red lines requiring a military response if the Syrian government deployed chemical weapons.
"The world set a red line when governments representing 98% of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons was abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use even when countries are engaged in war," he said. "That was not something I just kind of made up, I did not pluck it out of thin air." He added:
"Keep in mind, I'm somebody who opposed the war in Iraq, and I'm not interested in repeating mistakes about basing decisions on faulty intelligence," the US president said at a news conference in Stockholm.
On Tuesday Obama portrayed his plans for US military action as part of a broader strategy to topple Bashar al-Assad, as the White House's campaign to win over sceptics in Congress gained momentum.
Putin, in an interview published on Wednesday, said it was too early to talk about what Russia would do if the US attacked Syria but added: "We have our ideas about what we will do and how we will do it in case the situation develops towards the use of force or otherwise."
He then said Russia might restart Syria's suspended S-300 air defence missile contract. Describing the weapon as "very efficient", he said: "If we see that steps are taken that violate the existing international norms, we shall think how we should act in the future, in particular regarding supplies of such sensitive weapons to certain regions of the world."
The statement could also be a veiled threat to revive a contract for the delivery of the S-300s to Iran, which Russia cancelled a few years ago under strong US and Israeli pressure.
But Obama arrives at St Petersburgtin a strong position after the growing impression that he will win the support of Congress next week to take military action. In signs that the political tide was slowly turning Obama's way in Washington, US senators on an important committee yesterday agreed on a draft resolution backing the use of US military force in Syria. The Senate foreign relations committee passed an amended resolution to authorise military action. It authorises strikes against the Syrian regime within a 60-day window, extendable to 90 days, as requested by the White House. this is first time lawmakers have voted to allow military action since the October 2002 votes authorising the invasion of Iraq.
The resolution will be put before the full Senate for a vote on Monday, where it is expected to pass. Obama was facing a tougher battle in the House of Representatives, whose foreign affairs committee heard testimony from secretary of state John Kerry on Wednesday. Kerry warned a sceptical and sometimes raucous panel that failing to strike Syria would embolden al-Qaida and raise to "100%" the chances Assad would use chemical weapons again.
In his interview Wednesday, Putin said he did not exclude supporting a UN security council resolution supporting military action in Syria if there was credible and tangible evidence Assad had used chemical weapons. But he described as absurd the idea that Syrian government forces would use chemical weapons at a time when he said they were in the ascendancy and knowing the potential repercussions.
Putin again questioned Western evidence. He accused Kerry outright of lying when, in urging Congress to approve strikes on Syria, Kerry played down the role of al-Qaeda in the rebel forces.
"Al-Qaeda units are the main military echelon, and they know this," Putin said. "Al-Qaeda units are the main military echelon, and they know this," Putin said. "He is lying and knows he is lying. It's sad."
He also said that US congressional approval without a UN Security Council resolution would be an act of aggression.
The Syria conflict, which began with a popular uprising in March 2011, has been stalemated, and it is not clear if US military strikes over the government's alleged chemical weapons use would change that. Obama has said he seeks limited pinpoint action to deter future chemical attacks, not regime change. Then, he changes his tune when he said that he wants to degrade Assad's military force and does not wish for him to stay in place in Damascus
Obama has been lobbying for international and domestic support for military action against Assad's regime, which the US says fired rockets loaded with the nerve agent sarin on rebel-held areas near Damascus before dawn on 21 August 21, killing hundreds of civilians.
So far, however, he has won little international backing for action. Among major allies, only France has offered publicly to join the US in a strike. In a parliament debate Wednesday, France's Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault made a passionate appeal for military intervention in Syria, placing the blame for the alleged chemical attack on Assad and warning that inaction could let him carry out more atrocities.
The debate ended without a vote since President Francois Hollande can order a military operation without one.
The fighting in Syria has killed more than 100,000 Syrians and uprooted nearly seven million from their homes. The civil war hit a stalemate almost from the start. The rebels control much of the countryside in the north, east and south, but the regime is hanging on to most urban centres in the west, where the majority of Syrians live.
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