It appears to be increasingly turning out to be a double whammy for President Barack Obama, the quintessential anti-war champion who is now making an all-out push for a military strike against Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons.
With support running low for a unilateral military offensive, both at home and abroad, Obama has stepped up his lobbying, trying hard to persuade key lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.
Much of the opposition from Republicans as well as Democrats flows from the strong anti-war feelings of their constituents following the US involvement in two costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade.
“I was elected to end wars, not start them,” Obama said at a news conference in St. Petersburg, the venue of G20 summit. But, he added, there are times when hard choices needed to be made, stressing that the Syrian regime’s alleged chemical attack against its own civilians was one such contingency that must be responded to.
Apparently concluding that he needs to make a more persuasive case on the military strike not only to lawmakers but to the country at large, Obama plans to address the nation next Tuesday.
In the 435-member House of Representatives that is controlled by Republicans, Obama’s military push is said to enjoy only 23 ‘yes’ votes as of now, according to a CNN vote estimate based on firm indications and public statements from members. In contrast, the ‘no’ votes are put at 115. As many as 275 members are still undecided, with 20 others falling in the ‘unknown’ category.
In the Democrats-controlled Senate, where Obama is expected to win the authorization, the ‘yes’ votes right now are put at 24 as against the 19 ‘no’ votes and 57 undecided.
“Yesterday, the President made five calls to a bipartisan group of senators as part of our continued engagement with members of Congress on Syria,” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said in St. Petersburg in what clearly pointed to uncertainties dogging the Congressional authorisation.
Questioned on the level of international support on this issue, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki named nine countries that have “publicly and explicitly expressed support for US military action” -- Australia, Albania, Canada, Denmark, France, Kosovo, Poland, Romania and Turkey. Without naming, she also spoke of support from another 30-odd countries.
Although the two top House Republicans, Speaker John Boehner and Majority leader Eric Cantor, have come out in support of Obama’s planned military action, they have made it clear that they would not pressure fellow-Republicans on how they should proceed, terming it a “conscience vote”.
Opposition to a military involvement is clearly not on traditional party lines this time, given that a good number of Obama’s Democratic colleagues have indicated that they would not support the resolution.
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