President Obama turns to Congress to OK strike against Syria

President Obama announced Saturday that he has concluded the United States should take military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his regime for using chemical weapons on civilians, but will first seek authorization from Congress.

“This menace must be confronted,” Obama said of the Assad regime’s alleged strike, speaking from the Rose Garden.

The announcement, though, sets up a timetable for debate that could drag on for weeks.

Obama said he would wait for Congress to return from recess; members are not scheduled to return until Sept. 9. Yet the president claimed any military response to Syria is “not time sensitive” and would be effective even one month from now.

The decision to seek congressional authorization is a departure from the administration’s decision to intervene in Libya in 2011. Though the president said he thinks he has the authority to order a military strike, he made clear he will ask Congress to vote on the issue.

“I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets,” the president said. He added: “I’m also mindful that I’m president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy

Via: Fox News

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Morning Examiner: Unpopular at home, abandoned abroad, Obama scales down bombing campaign

If you want to know why President Obama will not ask Congress for permission to bomb Syria, you only need to look across the Atlantic, where British Prime Minister David Cameron suffered a humiliating defeat Thursday, when the British Parliament defeated his motion for British backing of the use of force against Syria.

Unilateral is as unilateral does
Since both Russia and China would block any United Nations Security Council resolution approving an attack on Syria, and now that the British people have told their government they don’t want to participate, Obama has no one else to act with him, should he choose to go ahead with his bombing.

Faced with a total lack of international help, Obama is scaling back his bombing plans. “Here, what’s being contemplated is of such a limited and narrow nature that it’s not as if there’s a similar imperative for bringing in different capabilities from different countries,” a senior administration official told The Wall Street Journal.

A skeptical Congress
More than 100 House Republicans have signed a letter, written by Rep. Scott Rigell, R-Va., demanding that Obama seek approval from Congress before he bombs Syria. And they are not alone.

And more than 50 House Democrats have signed a separate letter, written by Rep. Barbara Lee, R-Calif., demanding a similar vote. “While we understand that as commander-in-chief you have a constitutional obligation to protect our national interests from direct attack, Congress has the constitutional obligation and power to approve military force, even if the United States or its direct interests (such as its embassies) have not been attacked or threatened with an attack,” Lee’s letter reads.

Via: Washington Examiner

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