Brits ready to join US Navy in strikes on Syria

Telegraph:

Royal Navy vessels are being readied to take part in a possible series of cruise missile strikes, alongside the United States, as military commanders finalise a list of potential targets.

Government sources said talks between the Prime Minister and international leaders, including Barack Obama, would continue, but that any military action that was agreed could begin within the next week.

As the preparations gathered pace, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, warned that the world could not stand by and allow the Assad regime to use chemical weapons against the Syrian people “with impunity”.

Britain, the US and their allies must show Mr Assad that to perpetrate such an atrocity “is to cross a line and that the world will respond when that line is crossed”, he said.

British forces now look likely to be drawn into an intervention in the Syrian crisis after months of deliberation and international disagreement over how to respond to the bloody two-year civil war.
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The escalation comes as a direct response to what the Government is convinced was a gas attack perpetrated by Syrian forces on a civilian district of Damascus last Wednesday.
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The problem is one of proof.  There is little dispute that there was a gas attack, and that rockets from the Syrian arsenal were used.  What is not clear is which party used them.  That is something the UN will try to establish, but it looks like there maybe a response before that happens.  A cruise missile strike by itself will have very little strategic effect.  It could be like the ineffective attacks used by Clinton in response to the African embassy bombings.

Richard Fernandez describes how the punitive attack is likely to go down.