Obama: U.S. military ready if Russia’s Syria plan fails

President Barack Obama warned late Tuesday that America's military will be ready to strike Syria if a Russian-backed diplomatic plan to secure and destroy Bashar Assad's stockpiles of chemical weapons fails.

"I've ordered our military to maintain their current posture to keep the pressure on Assad and to be in a position to respond if diplomacy fails," Obama said in a formal address to the nation from the White House.

But Obama, making the case for the latest dizzying spin of his muddled and unpopular Syria policy, did not set a time frame for Moscow's approach to succeed.

"The Russian government has indicated a willingness to join with the international community in pushing Assad to give up his chemical weapons," he said. "It's too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that Assad keeps its commitments."

"But this initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force," he said.

"I have therefore asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force while we pursue this diplomatic path," he said.

The United States, Britain and France will work with Russia and China — which have vetoed U.N. Security Council action on Syria — to craft a resolution "requiring Assad to give up his chemical weapons and to ultimately destroy them under international control."

Obama's 15-minute speech came amid a frenzy of diplomacy and behind-the-scenes intrigue, bordering on chaos:

- Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted America needed to take the threat of force off the table in order to secure Syrian compliance

- France was drafting a strongly worded U.N. Security Council resolution warning Syria to place its chemical weapons arsenal under international control or face "extremely serious consequences."

- The United Nations Security Council envisioned, then postponed, a meeting

- Russia planned to send the United States proposals for U.N. action, apparently eager to avoid a binding resolution implicitly carrying the threat of force.

- Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington needs "a full resolution from the Security Council in order to have confidence that this has the force that it has to have."

- Syria said it would declare its chemical weapons arsenal and hoped to join the Chemical Weapons Convention, the international treaty forbidding countries from stockpiling those weapons of mass destruction.

- Kerry planned to travel to Geneva to meet Thursday with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov

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