Ambassador: US Syria strike would bolster UN

“In this case, with regard to this mass casualty chemical weapons use and the risk of further use, the risk, as the Secretary General said, of this becoming a weapon of war, to stand back would be to endanger not only international peace and security, not only U.S. national security, but we also believe the very international system that we have been working these decades to build.”

{mosads}Power made the comments after briefing U.N. member states on the U.S. evidence that the Assad regime used chemical weapons. She said the administration has concluded “there is no viable path forward in this Security Council,” despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comments this week that Russia “doesn’t exclude” approving punitive strikes if the United States produces what it deems convincing evidence of Assad’s guilt.

Power said the United Nations was violating its own “red line” by failing to act.

“The use of chemical weapons is not America’s red line,” she said. “As President Obama said yesterday, ‘This is the world’s red line.’ One hundred eighty-nine countries, representing 98 percent of the world’s population, and all 15 members of the U.N. Security Council, agree that the use of chemical weapons is abhorrent and we have all collectively approved a treaty forbidding their use even when countries are engaged in war.”

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