An unexpectedly narrow approval by a key Senate panel, and divisions that came to the fore at a House panel hearing, point to the stiff challenge that President Barack Obama could face in his bid to secure Congressional authorisation for a military strike against Syria.
Far from handing him any resounding approval that one might have expected from a Democrats-controlled forum, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 10-7 in favour of a use-of-force resolution, despite stipulating a 60-day time limit and ruling out American ground troops. While five of the eight Republicans on the committee voted against the resolution, three of the 10 Senators from Obama’s own Democratic Party failed to go along with the proposal for military strike. Two of them, Christopher Murphy and Tom Udall, voting against it and one Senator, Edward Markey, abstaining. It’s the Republican-controlled House of Representatives where Obama is set to face the real test. A foretaste of what may be in store was on view at Thursday’s hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, with several Republican members raising pointed questions.
Despite assertions by President Obama that it would be a “limited, narrow” military operation, members have brought up a host of issues including unintended consequences flowing from a possibly stiff retaliation from the Bashar al-Assad regime, collateral damage of the whole exercise and unintended strengthening of Al Qaeda forces who are also in the opposition mix battling Assad. In the face of the uncertainties surrounding Congre ssional nod, Obama is expected to address the nation on Syria after returning from St. Petersburg in Russia, where he is participating in the G20 summit. Secretary of State John Kerry indicated this possibility during his appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
For all the effort to garner Congressional backing, Obama has declined to rule out a strike option if he failed to provide the authorization. As he put it at a news conference in Stockholm on Wednesday, “As Commander-in-Chief, I always preserve the right and the responsibility to act on behalf of America’s national security. I do not believe that I was required to take this to Congress. But I did not take this to Congress just because it’s an empty exercise; I think it’s important to have Congress’s support on it.”
While appealing to lawmakers and foreign leaders to back his plan, Obama asserted that it was the Congress’ credibility and the international community’s credibility that were on the line, and not his own. Although the two top House Republicans, Speaker John Boehner and House Majority leader Eric Cantor, have come out in support of the president’s military push, a large section of the Republican rank-and-file appears to hold a different view, something that clearly stood out at the House panel briefing.
Another senior Republican lawmaker, Dana Rohrabacher from California, said he would vote against the resolution, arguing that the US ought not to engage in conflicts around the world unless they directly affected American national security. “This is not the case with Syria. Both sides of the Syrian conflict are dominated by forces opposed not only to American interests but to American values,” he said in a statement.