A military strike in Syria may be unpopular, President Obama conceded Friday, but it's the right thing to do for the security of America and the world.
He noted that much of the American public and the international community remains opposed to his call for military action in Syria, spurred by evidence that the Syrian regime under President Bashar Assad killed almost 1,500 civilians in an August 21 chemical weapons attack. But that shouldn't stop us from doing what we need to do, he argued.
"There are times where we have to make hard choices if we're going to stand up for the things we care about," he explained at a press conference in St. Petersburg, Russia during the G-20 global economic summit, warning that failure to respond to the chemical attack would unravel the international consensus against the use of weapons of mass destruction.
"This is not convenient. This is not something that I think a lot of folks around the world find an appetizing set of choices," he admitted. "But the question is do these norms mean something. And if we're not acting, what does that say?"
"I was elected to end wars, not start them," he said. "I spent the last four and a half years doing everything I can to reduce our reliance on military power as a means of meeting our international obligations and protecting the American people."
"I would greatly prefer working through multilateral channels and working through the United Nations to get this done," he said, but "when there's a breach this brazen, of a norm this important, and the international community is paralyzed and frozen and doesn't act, then that norm begins to unravel."
He noted that much of the American public and the international community remains opposed to his call for military action in Syria, spurred by evidence that the Syrian regime under President Bashar Assad killed almost 1,500 civilians in an August 21 chemical weapons attack. But that shouldn't stop us from doing what we need to do, he argued.
"There are times where we have to make hard choices if we're going to stand up for the things we care about," he explained at a press conference in St. Petersburg, Russia during the G-20 global economic summit, warning that failure to respond to the chemical attack would unravel the international consensus against the use of weapons of mass destruction.
"This is not convenient. This is not something that I think a lot of folks around the world find an appetizing set of choices," he admitted. "But the question is do these norms mean something. And if we're not acting, what does that say?"
"I was elected to end wars, not start them," he said. "I spent the last four and a half years doing everything I can to reduce our reliance on military power as a means of meeting our international obligations and protecting the American people."
"I would greatly prefer working through multilateral channels and working through the United Nations to get this done," he said, but "when there's a breach this brazen, of a norm this important, and the international community is paralyzed and frozen and doesn't act, then that norm begins to unravel."