Jones: Would establishing that Syria has used chemical weapons be enough trigger international intervention?
Director and Senior Fellow of the NYU Center on International Cooperation
It might well. The U.S. Administration – and more importantly, President Obama personally – has set chemical weapons use as a red line. There’s some wiggle room in his position, in that there’s never been any specification of how much, or in what fashion, chemical weapons use would trigger U.S. action. But pressure will now rapidly mount for the U.S. to act more decisively than it did over the past 12 months; and it’s worth noting that under new Secretary of State John Kerry, the U.S. is already taking a more assertive stance on directing arms and training.
