President's remarks marked an escalation of rhetoric on Syria and follow a whirlwind round of diplomatic talks headed by Kerry

Barack Obama stepped up US rhetoric over Syria in his first public comments since the alleged chemical attack, which he called a "big event of grave concern" that the US could not afford to ignore.

"There is no doubt that when you start seeing chemical weapons used on a large scale – and, again, we're still gathering information about this particular event, but it is very troublesome," he said in an interview on CNN.

"That starts getting to some core national interests that the United States has, both in terms of us making sure that weapons of mass destruction are not proliferating, as well as needing to protect our allies, our bases in the region."

Though still stressing the need to verify the attack, Obama's remarks are a marked escalation on the cautious language used by the White House in recent days and follow a whirlwind round of diplomacy by Secretary of State John Kerry, who spoke to at least eight other foreign ministers and officials on Thursday.

US military leaders remain anxious about being sucked into the conflict and a National Security Council meeting at the White House on Thursday broke up without agreement, after considering a range of military options including, reportedly, the use of cruise missile against the Assad government.

A defence official told Reuters on Friday the US navy would expand its presence in the Mediterranean with a fourth cruise-missile armed warship because of the situation in Syria. The USS Mahan had finished its deployment and was due to head back to its home base in Norfolk, Virginia, but the commander of the US Sixth Fleet had decided to keep the ship in the region, the official said.

Obama hinted he was favouring the more interventionist approach favoured by advisers such as UN ambassador Samantha Power, telling CNN the US could not afford to stand by.

"I think it is fair to say that, as difficult as the problem is, this is something that is going to require America's attention and hopefully the entire international community's attention," he said.

Obama also suggested the evidence of chemical attacks was much easier to obtain this time around than after previous alleged incidents, which the US took many weeks to acknowedge.

"Unlike some of the evidence that we were trying to get earlier that led to a UN investigator going into Syria, what we've seen indicates that this is clearly a big event of grave concern," said the president.

Nonetheless a decision seems far from over in Washington, where officials are scarred by the memories of Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The notion that the US can somehow solve what is a sectarian, complex problem inside of Syria sometimes is overstated," said the president in the interviewed, which was carried out on Thursday but aired on Friday morning.

Obama added: "I think the American people also expect me to do as president is to think through what we do from the perspective of, what is in our long-term national interests? And, you know, I – you know, sometimes what we've seen is that folks will call for immediate action, jumping into stuff, that does not turn out well, gets us mired in very difficult situations, can result in us being drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually breed more resentment in the region.
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Yeah this is just what the American people want their president to do, to start yet another thankless war in a predominantly Muslim country. But this time we have the Soviets on the other side backing the regime while we back the Muslim terrorists. Do nothing is the correct answer. Mind your own freakin' business.

Unless Israel is threatened, leave the whole entire region alone for a change.

Where are the peace protestors? You just can't count on them to speak up anymore.