Obama Pledges to Consider Syria Plan, While Keeping Threat of a Strike

"Tonight I want to talk to you about Syria. why it matters, and where we go from here," President Obama told the nation in a prime time speech Tuesday night, where he announced that the United States will continue to pursue congressional authorization for a military strike while, at the same time, pursuing a new diplomatic path opened up on Monday by Russia.

On Tuesday, that plan became slightly more complicated to implement as the details emerged on what the Russians would, and wouldn't support in order to avoid a strike. One agreed upon detail: Syria giving up its chemical weapons to international control. But Russia and Syria would also like the United States to take the option of a strike off the table entirely. 

Nevertheless, that option has changed the narrative of what seemed like an inevitable military strike on Syria, at least for now. "Over the last few days we've seen some encouraging signs, in part because of the" threat of military strikes," Obama said. "The Assad regime has now admitted that they had these chemical weapons," he said, adding that any agreement between Syria and the world to stop a military strike would involve verifying Assad's commitment to hand over his weapons. 

Read more on The Atlantic Wire.