Congress is scheduled to cast its first vote on Wednesday on the question of whether to authorize military intervention in Syria.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that senators should plan to vote "sometime" on Wednesday on a motion to proceed to the Syria resolution, a procedural vote that will offer an early glimpse at whether President Barack Obama has the necessary votes in the upper chamber to support his request for authorization to strike Syria.
The vote will follow Obama's prime-time address to the nation on Tuesday evening, as well as the president's visit to Capitol Hill on Tuesday afternoon to huddle privately with Senate Democrats. (Reid said that Obama had also offered to meet privately with Republican senators.)
In remarks on the Senate floor, Reid, the Senate's top Democrat, exhorted colleagues to support the resolution.
"America's willingness to stand for what's right should not end at our borders," the majority leader said.
Reid even invoked a line from Dante's "Inferno:" “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
