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Barack Obama

WASHINGTON. — US President Barack Obama says he does not regret his speech drawing a “red line” over Syria’s use of chemical weapons, a phrase critics say symbolises the US failure to act over the country’s conflict.

Obama made the comment in 2012 about possible US military action in Syria, saying “a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilised.” In what was billed as his last network interview, on CBS News programme “60 Minutes” broadcast on Sunday — less than a week before his term ends on Friday — Obama confirmed that he had ad-libbed phrase, which wasn’t in the text of his speech.

“I don’t regret at all saying that if I saw (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons on his people that that would change my assessments in terms of what we were or were not willing to do in Syria,” he said. Challenged by his interviewer Steve Kroft that “you didn’t say that . . . you said — you drew the red line,” Obama declined to say whether he would take it back.

“I think I made a bigger mistake if I had said, ‘Eh, chemical weapons. That doesn’t really change my calculus.’”

“I think it was important for me as president of the United States to send a message that in fact there is something different about chemical weapons,” he added. “And regardless of how it ended up playing, I think in the Beltway, what is true is Assad got rid of his chemical weapons.” — AFP.