Syria is ‘not Iraq or Afghanistan’ says Obama

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama’s call for a military strike in Syria has gained significant momentum, with leaders of both parties in Congress saying they are convinced that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people and that the United States should respond.

Barack Obama: Wants limited, proportional US involvement. Picture: AP

The top Republican in Congress, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, yesterday said taking action was something “the United States as a country needs to do.”

Mr Boehner emerged from a White House meeting with Mr Obama and other senior legislators and said only the US had the capability to stop Mr Assad and warn others around the world that such actions would not be tolerated.

Mr Obama urged Congress to hold a prompt vote once it returns from holiday next week.

The president also tried to assure the public that involvement in Syria would be a “limited, proportional step”. “This is not Iraq, and this is not Afghanistan,” Mr Obama said.

The US says it has proof that the Assad regime is behind sarin gas attacks that Washington claims killed at least 1,429 people, including more than 400 children.

The Obama administration argues that the US must exert global leadership in retaliating for what apparently was the deadliest use of chemical weapons anywhere over the past 25 years. But after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, polls show most Americans opposed to any new military action overseas.

House Republican majority leader Eric Cantor also said he would support Mr Obama’s call for military action against Syria. the president also won conditional support on Monday from two of his fiercest foreign policy critics, Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

Meanwhile, Britain would do more to help victims of the Syrian civil war, William Hague pledged yesterday as the United Nations revealed that the number of refugees had passed two million.

The Foreign Secretary said the government remained “highly active” in seeking an end to the violence, but insisted there were no plans to seek a fresh vote on UK involvement in military strikes.

Efforts would instead be concentrated on a diplomatic push to secure a stalled peace conference, with Prime Minister David Cameron to press regime ally Russia on the issue at the G20 summit later this week.