WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has conditionally endorsed a Russian offer for international inspectors to seize and destroy deadly chemical weapons in Syria as efforts to avert retaliatory U.S. missile strikes shift from Washington to the United Nations.
In a nationally televised address Tuesday night, the president provided a rationale for greater U.S. intervention in a sectarian civil war that has dragged on for more than two years even while acknowledging that winning the hearts and minds of Americans to back another Mideast conflict remains a struggle.
In response to the President’s speech, Chautauqua County Congressman Tom Reed (R-Corning) said he remains open to diplomatic alternatives,  adding that the U.S. must be careful in weighing future implications on those alternatives.
Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said that a credible diplomatic solution at the United Nations is the best possible outcome for the United States and the world community, saying the U.S. must fully exhaust this developing opportunity before determining whether to authorize U.S. military action.
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