Will the phrase “Guns of August” one day refer not only to the prelude to World War I in 1914 but also to the prelude to a Middle East war in 2013?

That is the ominous question posed by Roger Boyes, the diplomatic editor of the Times of London and a foreign correspondent for the past 35 years.

“The direction of events in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Iran should keep us awake at night. History is taking a dangerous turn,” he writes. “The region certainly cannot sustain two wars — Syria’s bloody insurgency and a near-civil war in Egypt — without wrecking established peace treaties and the normal mechanisms for defusing conflict.”

I sat down with Boyes in our London newsroom. He acknowledged that the conflicts coursing through a half-dozen Middle Eastern countries did not come from a single source, nor did they stem from a single reason.

But he feared the problems were becoming intractable and were spreading across state borders: “the new Sunni assertiveness, the rise of the jihad, the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood not only in Egypt but in every Arab society.”

And Boyes warned that, as in August 1914, the world was not paying enough attention.

“In August 1914 there was a lot of grouse shooting going on. In August 2013, politicians prefer to read doorstopper biographies in Tuscany and Cornwall. Yet the spreading Middle East crisis, its multiple flashpoints, is every bit as ominous as the prelude to war in 1914.”

The news certainly seems to get worse by the day. The West is now directly blaming the Assad regime for using chemical weapons against its own people in Syria. The drumbeat toward a military strike in Syria grows louder by the hour.

The U.K. is “making contingency plans,” according to the prime minister’s spokesman.

“The use of chemical weapons in the 21st century, on a large scale like this, cannot go unaddressed, cannot be ignored,” warned the French president.

And as the United States’ top diplomat put it: “President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable people."

Western officials warn that the decision of whether to attack Syria will be made this week.

The Guns of August, indeed.

ABC News' Mary-Rose Abraham and Brian Fudge contributed to this episode.

Expert: Mideast events aligning ominously

Without modern weapons like cruise missiles and smart bombs, Syrian rebels employ much simpler technology.
More prime examples

Free Syrian Army fighters inspect munitions and a tank that belonged to forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad after they seized Aleppo's town of Khanasir August 26, 2013. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

By William Maclean and Oliver Holmes

BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.N. chemical weapons investigators crossed Syria's front line into rebel-held territory on Wednesday for a second visit to the scene of a poison gas attack that has triggered Western plans for war.

U.S. President Barack Obama and his European and Middle East allies have already blamed President Bashar al-Assad for last week's killing of hundreds of civilians. But the U.N. experts, who were first allowed to cross the front line by Assad's forces on Monday, are still engaged in gathering evidence.

As long as inspectors remain in Syria, Western attacks are improbable, given the risk they would pose to the team's safety. A Reuters journalist saw U.N. cars leave a hotel in government-controlled central Damascus. An opposition activist later said they were starting work in the eastern suburb of Zamalka.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stressed that the inspection team must be given "time to do its job".

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Survivors from what activists say is a gas attack rest inside a mosque in the Duma neighbourhood of …

With the price of oil and gold soaring and world stock markets hit by fears of an unpredictable new phase of the Syrian civil war, which has split the Middle East on sectarian lines, only the timing of air strikes still seems in much doubt.

The aim, governments say, is to punish Assad's use of banned weapons but not, the White House insists, to impose "regime change" and end a conflict now in its third year. But Russia and China, set on blocking U.N. backing, warn that what they see as an illegal assault on a sovereign state could inflame the war.

Having demanded that Assad end his family's four-decade rule since Syrians rose up against him during the Arab Spring of 2011, Western powers have hesitated to arm the rebels, fearing the rise of Islamist militant groups in their ranks.

In a mark of the complexities of the region, Assad faces not just retribution from neighboring countries and the West but from al Qaeda. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) said it was launching an operation called "Volcano of Revenge" that would strike Syrian security forces in Damascus.

TIMING

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U.N. chemical weapons experts visit a hospital where wounded people affected by an apparent gas atta …

No Western attack, expected to involve cruise missiles fired by U.S. ships in the Mediterranean, is likely before Obama has a U.S. intelligence report on the August 21 gas attack on rebel-held suburbs of the capital. Its conclusions, however, are scarcely in doubt. Numerous officials have already blamed Assad.

"There is no doubt who is responsible for this heinous use of chemical weapons in Syria," U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday. "The Syrian regime."

A spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said he and Obama spoke on Tuesday and had "no doubt" of Assad's guilt.

Air strikes are unlikely before Cameron has given the British parliament an opportunity to be seen to support his policy, in a debate scheduled for Thursday. Like the United States, Britain has warships in the Mediterranean. It also has an air base on Cyprus, 200 km (120 miles) from the Syrian coast.

The British government is not obliged to win a vote but with voters wary of new military entanglements after over a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Cameron, like fellow Western leaders, has no wish to be accused of defying public opinion.

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U.N. chemical weapons experts meet residents at one of the sites of an alleged poison gas attack in …

Many British lawmakers across the political spectrum uneasy about the prospect of air strikes. A YouGov poll published on Wednesday showed 50 percent of the British public opposed a missile strike on Syria, with just 25 percent in favor.

OPPOSITION

Rallying international opinion is also a concern.

Russia, Assad's main arms supplier, has made clear it will not back any U.N. Security Council resolution of the kind which has given international legal cover to some previous wars - including the NATO bombing of Libya two years ago.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.N. Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi that attacking Syria would destabilize the country and the region, the Foreign Ministry said in Moscow.

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A U.N. chemical weapons expert (R) gathers evidence at one of the sites of an alleged poison gas att …

Syria's war has heightened tensions between Assad's sponsor Iran and Israel, which bombed Syria this year; it has killed over 100,000 and driven millions across borders into Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq; and it has fuelled sectarian bloodshed in Lebanon and Iraq, where bombs killed 44 on Wednesday alone.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that U.S. action would be "a disaster for the region".

China, too, is wary of what it sees as Western interference in the affairs of others. The official People's Daily newspaper said air strikes would add "oil to the flames of Syria's civil war" and added that, as in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq a decade ago, Washington and its allies wanted Assad out.

However, Western governments have rallied support from the Arab League and Syria's Muslim neighbor and NATO member Turkey and have begun to lay out arguments they say show that they can satisfy some criteria of international law.

Australia, which takes over the chair of the U.N. Security Council on Sunday, added its voice on Wednesday to the Western view that continuing deadlock along Cold War lines in the top United Nations body would not rule out an attack on Syria.

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A U.N, chemical weapons expert meets with residents and activists at one of the sites of an alleged …

"Everyone's preference would be for action, a response, under United Nations auspices," Foreign Minister Bob Carr said.

"But if that's not possible, the sheer horror of a government using chemical weapons against its people, using chemical weapons in any circumstances, mandates a response."

French President Francois Hollande has cited a 2005 U.N. provision for action to protect civilians from their own governments, which was inspired by the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Similar arguments were used by NATO to bomb Russian ally Serbia in 1999 after the killing of civilians in Kosovo.

SECURITY

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On Wednesday, as Britain's National Security Council prepared to meet on Syria, Foreign Secretary William Hague sought to justify an attack on the grounds of defending Britain's own interests. "We cannot permit our own security to be undermined by the creeping normalization of the use of weapons that the world has spent decades trying to control and eradicate," he wrote in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Hague warned that Syria's chemical weapons could "fall into the wrong hands". It was unclear how a limited campaign of air strikes would address that - analysts say chemical weapons dumps are unlikely to be bombed for fear of spreading the toxins.

Critics also argue that defeating Assad may carry greater risks of handing his arsenal to the likes of al Qaeda.

Hague further said Russian and Chinese opposition at the United Nations would not prevent military action. "We cannot allow diplomatic paralysis to be a shield for the perpetrators of these crimes," he wrote.

Syria's government denies gassing its own people and has vowed to defend itself, but people in Damascus are anxious.

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"I've always been a supporter of foreign intervention, but now that it seems like a reality, I've been worrying that my family could be hurt or killed," said a woman named Zaina, who opposes Assad. "I'm afraid of a military strike now."

Opposition activists have said at least 500 people, and possibly twice that many, were killed last Wednesday before dawn by rockets carrying the nerve gas sarin or something similar.

If true, it would be the worst chemical weapons attack since Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Iraqi Kurds in 1988.

(Additional reporting by Erika Solomon and Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

U.S. gears up for probable Syria strike

Western envoys reportedly tell opposition groups to expect military action against the Assad regime within days.
American forces 'ready to go'

President Barack Obama, sure to fall short of getting explicit U.N. approval for any military strikes against Syrian strongman Bashar Assad’s forces and facing potential divisions inside NATO, has instead been assembling allies and partners in a coalition of the willing that recalls the Iraq War.

And where then-President George W. Bush at least got Congress to authorize him to use force against Saddam Hussein, Obama shows no sign of asking lawmakers to do so, preferring instead to engage in “consultations” with key players.

For a president who defined his 2008 run for the White House with his forceful denunciation of the way Bush led the country into the Iraq War, and then managed the conflict, it’s an unusual turn of events, to say the least.

To be sure, there are major differences: While Russia opposed both interventions, France is this time in Washington’s corner. No major allies have spoken out against the principle of a forceful response to Assad's alleged slaughter of civilians last week with chemical weapons, though NATO ally Germany has signaled that it opposes military action. Obama has pointedly ruled out putting boots on the ground — and repeatedly cited the Iraq War as a cautionary tale of how interventions can spiral out of control.

With explicit U.N. approval impossible to secure absent a 180-degree turn by Russia, the current president is looking for justification in international law, while Bush found it in past U.N. Security Council resolutions.

And the intelligence community appears to be sadder and wiser regarding the need to provide rock-ribbed proof to back up the president’s allegations than it was when then-Secretary of State Colin Powell made his dramatic presentation to the United Nations warning of the threat of Saddam’s (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction.

Perhaps the most obvious difference is that the United States is responding to what appears to be actual chemical weapons use in Syria — not relying on years-old incidents and suspect motives.

The White House is sure to dismiss any such comparisons as an exercise in prejudgment, given that Obama has not formally announced his response to the alleged massacre outside Damascus.

But it bears keeping in mind given that Americans probably won’t be able to weigh in formally on Obama’s escalation in Syria until after it happens.

That’s not by any stretch a surprise — the D-Day landings weren’t the result of a national referendum, after all. But at least Congress had declared war. This time, with polls showing weak support for intervention in Syria, lawmakers show no inclination to launch a formal debate on whether to use force against Assad.

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Fighters from the Free Syrian Army's Tahrir al Sham brigade use a shotgun to fire an improvised gren …

The news on Tuesday brought the prospect of war with Syria almost to the point of inescapability. CNN reported that a formal U.S. intelligence assessment offering technical evidence that Syria massacred rebels with chemical weapons last week could come as early as today. NBC reported that strikes at Syrian targets could begin Thursday and might last “three days.” The Washington Post reported that military action probably would last no more than two days and primarily rely on missile strikes or long-range bombers. Reuters reported that Western powers had told opposition forces to expect a strike against Bashar Assad’s forces “as early as in the next few days.” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the American military was “ready to go” if ordered on the attack.

On Monday the White House stonewalled some of the most important questions about a possible military campaign on the grounds that Obama has not yet made a decision.

Here is a rundown of the questions and White House responses:

What would be a proportional response to Syria’s alleged slaughter of civilians last week?

“I’m not going to speculate about potential responses,” spokesman Jay Carney told reporters at his daily briefing. “I’m not going to engage in hypotheticals about potential responses or what might occur after any response or any decision is made about a response.”

Could the president act without an explicit authorization from Congress? What about the United Nations? (Note here that Republican House Speaker John Boehner has called for only “consultation” with Congress).

Carney’s response: The president is talking with Congress and allies. Is that a substitute for U.N. approval? “You’re getting into a hypothetical about a decision that hasn’t been made.”

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When the question was asked again, the spokesman replied: “I don't want to speculate about what Congress might do when we haven’t even reached a decision.”

Obama did not try to secure congressional authorization for the intervention in Libya. There’s no reason to think he will do so now.

Could the president’s response stop short of military strikes? Is he considering other options?

“I’m not going to engage in hypotheticals about decisions that haven’t been made,” Carney said.

When could Obama decide whether to act?

“I'm not going to speculate about the timing of a response or a decision,” Carney said. (At this point, I should note that this isn’t about picking on Carney. Spokespeople — especially at the White House, especially on military or intelligence matters — are basically required to deploy these kinds of dodges. There are few worse sins in the White House than saying something seen as limiting the president's range of options when he has not done so).

What’s the legal basis for a military strike? (The president, a constitutional law professor, said last week that he meant to have a basis in international law.)

“I'm not going to speculate about a decision that hasn’t been made,” Carney replied.

Would military action be confined to retaliation for the alleged chemical weapons attack? Or would it aim to turn the tide of the 2½ year civil war in Syria?

This is one of the most important questions, and Carney provided an answer after initially refusing to “speculate” what course of action Obama would choose.

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(Photo courtesy UNHCR/O. Laban-Mattei) A young Syrian refugee in her mobile home in the Zaatari's ca …

“The answer broadly is that we are considering responses to this transgression, to this violation of an international norm. We are continuing our support for the opposition in its fight against Assad. But we also have made clear for a long time now that there is not a military solution to that conflict. There has to be a political solution — that ultimately Assad has to step aside to allow for a better future for the Syrian people,” he said.

Obama himself has repeatedly, forcefully, and publicly warned against action that could pull the United States into a escalatory spiral in Syria.

What’s the point of having the U.N. inspectors in Syria render a judgment about whether chemical weapons were used if Obama has already decided they were, and by the Assad regime?

“At this point, we do not have confidence that the U.N. can conduct a credible inquiry into what happened,” Carney said. “And we are concerned that the Syrian government's continued obstruction and delay of the inquiry is designed to create more time and space for their continued actions.”

Translation: If the inspectors find evidence of chemical weapons, we will be vindicated. If they don’t find evidence of chemical weapons, it’s irrelevant.

Obama aides had made this argument last week, predicting that Assad’s forces would shell the affected areas to corrupt any evidence of chemical weapons.

Secretary of State John Kerry argued that Assad had violated international norms of behavior by using chemical weapons. Is that the legal underpinning of potential military action?

“I’m not going to lay out a legal case here because we are evaluating potential responses,” Carney said.

Why is the United States responsible for enforcing this norm?

“I think this is concluding that the United States alone is appalled by the use of chemical weapons in violation of international norms here, and that is not the case,” Carney said. “And I think leaders from other nations have made clear that they share our views about what happened in Syria on this particular occasion.”

Obama last week said that the United States is the “indispensable nation” on such issues, a reflection that it alone has the clout to act.

Is Obama heading down Bush's path?

The situation in Syria puts Obama in a spot similar to what his predecessor faced in Iraq in 2003.
Congress's approval is key difference

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Momentum appeared to build Tuesday for Western military action against Syria, with the U.S. and France saying they are in position for a strike, while the government in Damascus vowed to use all possible measures to repel it.

The prospect of a dramatic U.S.-led intervention into Syria's civil war stemmed from the West's assertion — still not endorsed by U.N. inspectors — that President Bashar Assad's government was responsible for an alleged chemical attack on civilians outside Damascus on Aug. 21 that the group Doctors Without Borders says killed 355 people. Assad denies the claim.

The Arab League also threw its weight behind calls for punitive action, blaming the Syrian government for the attack and calling for those responsible to be brought to justice.

British Prime Minister David Cameron recalled Parliament to hold an emergency vote Thursday on his country's response. It is unlikely that any international military action would begin before then.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said U.S. military forces stand ready to strike Syria at once if President Barack Obama gives the order, and French President Francois Hollande said France was "ready to punish those who took the heinous decision to gas innocents."

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French President Francois Hollande delivers his speech during a conference with France's ambassadors …

Obama is weighing a response focused narrowly on punishing Assad for violating international agreements that ban the use of chemical weapons. Officials said the goal was not to drive Assad from power or impact the broader trajectory of Syria's bloody civil war, now in its third year.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday the West should be under no illusion that bombing Syrian military targets would help end the violence in Syria, an ally of Moscow, and he pointed to the volatile situations in Iraq and Libya that he said resulted from foreign military intervention.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said his country would use "all means available" to defend itself.

"We have the means to defend ourselves and we will surprise everyone," he said.

At a news conference in Damascus, al-Moallem challenged Washington to present proof to back up its accusations and he also likened the allegations to false American charges in 2003 that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion of that country.

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"They have a history of lies — Iraq," he said.

Vice President Joe Biden said there was no question that Assad was responsible for the attack — the highest-ranking U.S. official to say so — and the White House dismissed as "fanciful" the notion that anyone other than Assad could be to blame.

"Suggestions that there's any doubt about who's responsible for this are as preposterous as a suggestion that the attack did not occur," spokesman Jay Carney said.

A U.S. official said some of the evidence includes signals intelligence — information gathered from intercepted communications. The U.S. assessment is also based on the number of reported victims, the symptoms of those injured or killed, and witness accounts. The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the internal deliberations.

The United Nations said its team of chemical weapons experts in Syria had delayed a second trip to investigate the alleged attack by one day for security reasons. On Monday, the team came under sniper fire.

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Britain's Foreign Secretary, William Hague, leaves 10 Downing Street in London, Tuesday Aug. 27, 201 …

If Obama decides to order an attack against Syria, it would most likely involve sea-launched cruise missile attacks on Syrian military and communications targets.

The U.S. Navy has four destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea within range of targets inside Syria. The U.S. also has warplanes in the region.

In Cyprus, Defense Minister Fotis Fotiou said naval traffic in the eastern Mediterranean was very heavy with vessels from "all the major powers." He also said Cypriot authorities were planning to deal with a possible exodus of foreign nationals from Syria.

U.S. military intervention in Syria was running into fierce opposition from some members of Congress. A growing chorus of Republican and Democratic lawmakers demanded that Obama seek congressional authorization for any strikes against the Assad regime.

Charles Heyman, a former British officer who edits The Armed Forces of the UK, said the lack of a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against the Syrian government greatly complicates matters for the West. He said that may make it difficult for Cameron to win parliamentary backing.

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FILE - This Aug. 26, 2013 file photo shows Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel speaking in Jakarta, Indone …

"It's clear the governments want some form of military operation, but if the Security Council doesn't recommend it, then the consensus is that it's plainly illegal under international law," Heyman said. "The only legal way to go to war is in self-defense and that claim is difficult to make."

Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, has steadfastly opposed any international action against Syria.

Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said her country would not back any military action against Syria unless it was authorized by the Security Council — even though it considers a chemical attack to be a war crime.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Monday that if the Syrian government were proven to have been behind the gas attack, then Germany would support "consequences." But with less than four weeks until national elections, it is unlikely Germany would commit any forces.

Center-left opposition parties have rejected military intervention without U.N. proof that the Syrian government was behind the attack. And a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's party said the German military was already at "the breaking point" due to commitments in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

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French President Francois Hollande delivers his speech during a conference with France's ambassadors …

Support for some sort of international military response is likely to grow if it is confirmed that Assad's regime was responsible.

The U.N confirmed its chemical weapons team's mission faced a one-day delay Tuesday to improve preparedness and safety after unidentified snipers opened fire on the team's convoy Monday.

In Geneva, U.N. spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci said the U.N. inspection team might need longer than the planned 14 days to complete its work. She said its goal is to determine what chemical weapons might have been used in the Aug. 21 attack.

The Obama administration is making a legal argument for undertaking a military response to the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Syria, but said any action against the Syrian regime is not intended to depose Assad.

Carney said the United States and 188 other nations are signatories to a chemical weapons convention opposing the use of such weapons. Those countries have a stake in ensuring that international norms must be respected and there must be a response to a clear violation of those norms, he said.

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French President Francois Hollande delivers his speech during a conference with France's ambassadors …

In a veiled allusion to difficulties in getting any strong action through the Security Council, France's Hollande said that "international law must evolve with the times. It cannot be a pretext to allow mass massacres to be perpetrated."

He then went on to invoke France's recognition of "the responsibility to protect civilian populations" that the U.N. General Assembly approved in 2005.

Obama discussed Syria on Tuesday with Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, a NATO ally, and in recent days with Cameron, Hollande and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Harper's office said he agreed with the assessment that the Assad regime used chemical weapons against its own people, and called it an outrage that requires a "firm response," without defining what that might entail.

In supporting calls for action against Syria, the 22-member Arab League, which is dominated by Gulf powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Qatar, provides indirect Arab cover for any potential military attack by Western powers.

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United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres speaks during an interview with the A …

At an emergency meeting, the Arab League also urged members of the Security Council to overcome their differences and agree on "deterrent" measures.

"The council holds the Syrian regime totally responsible for this heinous crime and calls for all involved in the despicable crime to be given a fair international trial like other war criminals," the Arab League said in a statement.

Heyman predicted a possible three-phase campaign, with the first step — the encirclement of Syria by Western military assets by air and sea — already underway.

"Phase two would be a punitive strike, taking out high-value command and control targets and communications centers," Heyman said. "That could be done easily with cruise missiles from ships and aircraft. Phase three would be a massive takedown of Syrian air defenses. That would have to be done before you could take out artillery and armor, which is the key to long-term success."

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French President Francois Hollande delivers his speech during a conference with France's ambassadors …

Katz reported from London. Also contributing were Associated Press writers Zeina Karam and Bassem Mroue in Beirut, John Heilprin in Geneva, Julie Pace and Matthew Lee in Washington, Lori Hinnant in Paris, Lynn Berry in Moscow, Menelaos Hadjicostis in Cyprus, Sarah El Deeb in Cairo and Charmaine Noronha in Toronto.