As the US, UK, and allies prepare to conduct a widely expected air strike on Syria in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack that UN weapons inspectors haven’t completely confirmed yet, they’re also struggling to come up with a rationale.  Yeah, it turns out western nations still want a clear reason before they go and bomb other peoples’ stuff.

The ideal would be to get the go ahead from the United Nations Security Council, but that probably isn’t going to happen.  Russia is Syria’s closest ally and has thus far used its permanent seat on the Council to block punitive measures.  China is intensely suspicious of any western military action.  There is the possibility both would simply abstain from any punitive resolution, as they did two years ago with Libya.

Britain and France have cited the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning chemical weapons, but that is legally tenuous.  The agreement has no enforcement provision.  And Syria never signed the follow-up agreement known as the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. 

The United States has been looking into the 2005 “Responsibility to Protect” initiative that was invoked in the aforementioned Libya campaign.  That would leave President Barack Obama to explain why the 355 or more lives lost in the 21 August Chemical Weapons Attack east of Damascus crossed the red line, but the 100,000 lives lost in the first two years of the war did not.