Voting present on Syria

It seems that even after Secretary of State John Kerry’s breathless demand for action in Syria in response to the apparent use of chemical weapons by the Assad government against rebels, the President has passed off responsibility for any military response to Congress. According to the New York Times;

In one of the riskiest gambles of his presidency, Mr. Obama effectively dared lawmakers to either stand by him or, as he put it, allow President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to get away with murdering children with unconventional weapons. By asking them to take a stand, Mr. Obama tried to break out of the isolation of the last week as he confronted taking action without the support of the United Nations, Congress, the public or Britain, a usually reliable partner in such international operations.

“I’m prepared to give that order,” Mr. Obama said in a hurriedly organized appearance in the Rose Garden as American destroyers armed with Tomahawk missiles waited in the Mediterranean Sea. “But having made my decision as commander in chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interests, I’m also mindful that I’m the president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.”

Yeah, a risky gamble to hand off the decision to Congress. If the president is so convinced that there’s an actual national security threat, as commander-in-chief, it’s his responsibility to take action – in fact the constitution demands that he take action and the War Powers Act gives him the authority. But, apparently, polling tells him that it would be unpopular for him to take action.

An actual leader would present his case to the American public and sway popular opinion to his side, but then no one has ever called Obama a leader, well, except him. Of course, the Washington Post blames Bush for Obama’s indecision;

Ten years ago, Bush urged the American public, the Congress and the international community to believe intelligence assessments that Saddam Hussein’s government possessed weapons of mass destruction — a claim later proved wrong.

Now Obama is holding Syrian President Bashar Assad responsible for a reported chemical weapons attack and saying that justifies military action against his the Damascus government. But there are doubts about whether the evidence is convincing.

“The well of public opinion was well and truly poisoned by the Iraq episode and we need to understand the public skepticism,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said…

Yeah, well, I think most Americans know that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, you know, like the 500 tons of yellowcake uranium that we shipped from Iraq to Canada, and many of the chemical weapons we’re seeing in Syria came from Iraq in the weeks leading up to the removal of Hussein from his throne. Most of the world was convinced that Hussein had chemical weapons since he’d used them twice against the Kurds and countless times against Iran in that war. I can’t believe that I’m still pointing all of that out – that the anti-Bush crowd are still denying the obvious.

The only reason any well is poisoned is that this administration, and the Cameron coalition, can’t prove a national security interest in attacking Syria to merely punish the Assad regime with no real effect on the civil war there. Either there is a provable national security interest, or there isn’t. And what will victory in Syria look like when we punish them? How will we know they’ve learned their lesson?

Fox News is reporting that the Obama Administration is poised to take military action in spite of how Congress votes;

One senior State Department official, though, told Fox News that the president’s goal to take military action will indeed be carried out, regardless of whether Congress votes to approve the use of force.

Other senior administration officials said Obama is merely leaving the door open to that possibility. They say he would prefer that Congress approve a military attack on the Assad regime, in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons, and will wait to see what Congress does before making any final decisions on authorizing military force.

So, basically, the Obama Administration is just hoping that Congress is willing to share the blame with him when his military action/punishment backfires.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War