Obama moving toward sending lethal arms to Syrian rebels, officials say

The Washington Post reports: President Obama is preparing to send lethal weaponry to the Syrian opposition and has taken steps to assert more aggressive U.S. leadership among allies and partners seeking the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, according to senior administration officials.

The officials said they are moving toward the shipment of arms but emphasized that they are still pursuing political negotiation. To that end, the administration has launched an effort to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin that the probable use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government — and the more direct outside intervention that could provoke — should lead him to reconsider his support of Assad.

But Obama, who spoke by telephone with Putin on Monday and is sending Secretary of State John F. Kerry to Moscow in the coming days, is likely to make a final decision on the supply of arms to the opposition within weeks, before a scheduled meeting with Putin in June, the officials said.

Confirmation that the Assad government has used chemical weapons, Obama said Tuesday, would mean that “there are some options that we might not otherwise exercise that we would strongly consider.” [Continue reading…]

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One thought on “Obama moving toward sending lethal arms to Syrian rebels, officials say

  1. Norman

    Sending lethal weapons, again, to support who? Seems the only ones who receive the support, are the arms manufactures, certainly not the innocent victims, who only receive misery. Speed up the destruction of the infrastructure, then just walk away, as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya has endured.

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