Speaking today in Indonesia, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel declined to get into the specific details of a planned US attack on Syria, but insisted that it would only be done “in concert with the international community.”
The non-specificity of “international community” is likely deliberate here, as the US is almost certain to fail in getting UN Security Council authorization, with Russia and China both opposed to war.
Instead, the US is laying the groundwork for what they’re calling the “Kosovo precedent” of attacking a country without a UN imprimatur by insisting that NATO approval is more or less the same thing.
NATO nations have been leading the call for war for months now, and the US, Britain and France have reportedly already agreed to launch such an attack in the next couple of weeks.
The Obama Administration has long maintained that any “international mandate” from NATO or the UN would be sufficient for launching future wars, and has downplayed the idea of getting Congressional support as unnecessary.
