US preparing for probable strike on Syria

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney speaks about Syria during a press briefing at the White House in Washington August 27, 2013.[Photo/Agencies]

TOUGH CHOICES

Obama, Cameron and Hollande face questions at home about how a military intervention would end, whether they risk bolstering Assad if he rides out the assault and whether they risk handing power to anti-Western Islamist rebels if Assad were overthrown.

Turmoil in Egypt, where the 2011 uprising inspired Syrians to rebel, has underlined the unpredictability of revolutions. The presence of Islamist militants, including allies of al Qaeda in the Syrian rebel ranks, has given Western leaders pause. They have held back so far from helping Assad's opponents to victory.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said US strikes would help al Qaeda and called Western leaders "delusional" if they hoped to help the rebels reach a balance of power in Syria.

"We have means of defending ourselves, and we will surprise the Assad's forces made little or no response to three attacks by Israeli aircraft earlier this year that Israeli officials said disrupted arms flowing from Iran to Lebanon's Hezbollah.

The presence of United Nations experts in Damascus may be a factor holding back international military action. The experts came under fire in government-held territory on Monday before reaching the rebel lines. They interviewed and took samples from survivors, though much evidence may have decayed.

Opposition activists have said at least 500 people, and possibly twice that many, were killed by rockets carrying the nerve gas sarin or something similar. If so, it was the worst chemical weapons attack since Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Iraqi Kurds in 1988.