Obama carries ghosts of past battle cries

                                       

Published on Sep 11, 2013

While Syria's chemical weapons disarmament is widely seen as a good idea - there's still no complete unity at the UN Security Council. Russia has rejected France's proposal to invoke Chapter 7 of the UN Charter to the document, which would allow the handover of the arsenal to international control. That's because it implies the use of force. Here's how it was used in the past.

It saw NATO war planes bombing Libya two years ago under the pretext of humanitarian intervention. It also gave the green light to involvement in the Iraq and Kuwait conflict in 1991 - as well as the invasion of Iraq 12 years later. Back in the early 1950's - this part of the UN charter also became the basis for the Korean War. But the turn of events recently means that President Obama is unlikely to be able to deliver the same call-to-arms as his predecessors.