The West's inaction days after threats to launch punitive action
against Syria for a deadly chemical weapons attack could badly damage
its credibility in tackling other global flashpoints, observers say.
"Once
Lebanon and Syria and Egypt trembled when Washington spoke. Now they
laugh," observer Robert Fisk wrote in British newspaper The Independent.
"No one in the Middle East takes America seriously anymore," he wrote.
US
President Barack Obama -- who famously said that Syrian leader Bashar
al-Assad would be crossing a "red line" if he resorted to using chemical
weapons -- has deferred action and is trying to get Congressional
support for military action.
That was after the British parliament
in a shock move vetoed Prime Minister David Cameron's plans for an
intervention in Syria in the wake of the August 21 attack in a Damascus
suburb which Washington says killed more than 1,400 people.
French
President Francois Hollande appears resolute in his resolve to "punish"
Damascus but there is mounting opposition to the measure at home and
many opposition lawmakers have called for a vote on the issue.
"Through
the Syrian case, they are clearly trying to send a message to Tehran.
The idea of strikes is to show that the West is not so weak and when it
comes to chemical weapons it can act," said Karim Bitar, the head of
Middle East research at the Institute of International and Strategic
Relations.
But Bitar said the dithering over how to react on Syria was making the West look "amateurish."
"One has the feeling that we are improvising and that policies are being made day by day," he said.
Britain's
Daily Telegraph said Assad's allies Russia and Iran had shown
themselves to be far more resolute and effective than the West, which
has backed the opposition.
"Whether
it comes to weapons, cash or boots on the ground, either Russia or Iran
will actually deliver. And they do not need to worry about
parliamentary votes, Congressional support, or indeed public opinion,"
the right-leaning newspaper wrote.
The Times of London said in a
commentary that the "US administration had lurched from blood-curdling
war-like rhetoric to procedural bureaucracy within 24 hours."
The
newspaper in an editorial added that "America makes the world a safer
place not only through power but through dynamism and conviction. Today
it and its president look lacking in both."
France's Le Parisien
newspaper reported that Obama was being branded a "coward" in Israeli
social media sites. And Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung said witheringly:
"Don't show your Colt if you don't mean to shoot."
But Bitar said he did not believe US lawmakers would reject Obama's proposal, even if the debate was heated.
"There has not been an instance of a military action sought by the president being refused since 1973," he said.
"If
nothing happens, if we cancel any military strike, that could be seen
as a sign of weakness, but I think things have gone too far" for the
West to completely back down, he said.
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