With its sorry record, can Congress act prudently?
Just because Congress may approve a military strike on Syria does not mean it is a wise public policy. A Congress with a 14% approval rating, based on an August Gallup poll, cannot be doing everything right. Look at its record — especially the unintended consequences of what it has authorized.
Congress has presided explicitly or implicitly over military decisions that have cost the country dearly in lives and capital for over a decade. And neither Congress nor the Administration have owned up to the unintended consequences. The toppling of Saddam Hussein meant removal of the last symbol of secular Arab nationalism, an offset to Islamist fundamentalism, and it emboldened Shiite Iran to eye alignment with the majority Shiite sect in Iraq and become more assertive against the West. Further, the dismissal of thousands of Iraqi Baathist Party members and security forces by the American authority in Baghdad meant pandemonium after the capital was secured. There were limited competent resources to run the finance, electricity, transport, and other ministries. No one bargained for the massive American operating support required — and where was Congressional oversight?
The invasion of Afghanistan also authorized by Congress resulted in an unintended U.S. presence of almost twelve years and still counting — long after Mullah Omar was sent into hiding. Moreover, the counterinsurgency model sold to the American people is yielding limited security benefits, with the specter of a resurgent al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban after the U.S. and NATO withdrawal in 2014 — when there will likely be some stability in a few population centers, with the interior still controlled by warring tribes hostile to the West. The competing and more limited counter-terrorism model, originally espoused by Vice President Joe Biden, will be the protocol after 2014 — it already is in Yemen, Somalia and other hot spots where insertion teams, precision strikes, drone attacks, and other “stand-off” methods are expected to do the job.
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