U.K. Parliament Rejects Use of Force in Syria

British Prime Minister David Cameron lost a preliminary vote on Syria, an early sign of the pushback Western governments may face as they prepare to launch an attack.

Thursday evening’s vote was nonbinding, but in practice the rejection of military strikes means Cameron’s hands are tied. In a terse statement to Parliament, Cameron said it was clear to him that the British people did not want to see military action.

Facing vocal opposition from politicians and the public, Cameron had told parliament earlier that military action was justified on humanitarian grounds and the need to prevent the use of chemical weapons in Syria. He said the case for action wasn’t about taking sides in the Syrian conflict or about changing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The prime minister said no decision to act had been made and that the U.K. wouldn’t become involved in military action until a further parliamentary vote, due next week, after inspectors from the United Nations report their findings on the use of chemical weapons last week. Western governments have said the Assad regime carried out the attack.

But, he said, military intervention would be legally justified and pointed to the government’s legal advice, which says that even if the U.N. Security Council can’t agree on action, the U.K. would still be permitted under international law to act.

Cameron pointed to an assessment from the government’s Joint Intelligence Committee that said there is “little serious dispute” that chemical weapons were used and concluded “it is highly likely that the [Assad] regime was responsible” for the attacks that caused hundreds of deaths. The body, which brings together the heads of Britain’s intelligence agencies and advises the prime minister, said that it believes the Syrian government has used lethal chemical weapons 14 times, albeit on a smaller scale, since 2012.

Cameron didn’t provide detailed evidence to support those conclusions, but highlighted “open source” evidence such as extensive video footage and the fact that Assad regime was capable of such an attack and the opposition wasn’t.

Thursday’s vote is a precursor to a further parliamentary vote due early next week specifically on whether the U.K. should get directly involved.

Source: The Wall Street Journal