The world today is waiting and worrying. The UN Security Council is waiting for the French draft resolution, which builds on the Russian offer to put Syrian chemical weapons under international control. US President Barack Obama is waiting anxiously, too. He wants to know whether this offer is more than a political maneuver and could be a reliable mechanism to avoid the tough test of Congress — which may weigh heavily on his legacy — and avoid a war he never wanted. And Lebanon, the tiny country, is waiting for its destiny and worrying about it also.

Despite the clarity of the international stance toward the Assad regime and the use of chemical weapons, despite the international and Arab support for the strike that US Secretary of State John Kerry has managed to cobble together in the past few days, and despite the fact that the US military is in standby mode to strike Syria without a UN umbrella — whether in terms of legitimate reasons, especially those related to using chemical weapons, or other reasons associated with the United States’ credibility and its role in the Middle East — it remains uncertain whether Congress will endorse the president’s decision to punish Syria. [Link]