Obama seeking support for strike from Republican rivals
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US President Barack Obama was inviting two outspoken senators to the White House yesterday for a meeting as he seeks approval from Congress for US military intervention in Syria.
The president announced over the weekend that he’ll seek approval for military strikes in response to an attack in the Damascus suburbs last month the US says included sarin gas and killed at least 1,429 civilians.
That decision sets the stage for the biggest foreign policy vote in Congress since the Iraq war. A vote could come once lawmakers return from summer break, which is due to end next Monday.
Before then, Obama must sell the idea to a nation scarred by more than a decade of war.
Senator John McCain, Obama’s White House opponent in 2008, and Senator Lindsey Graham will be at the talks. Both have argued that Obama must oust President Bashar Assad from power and change the course of a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people.
And both have threatened to vote against Obama’s authorization if the military plan doesn’t seek to shift momentum toward the rebels trying to oust Assad from power.
McCain and Graham, both Republicans, represent the most aggressive faction in Congress. They have called on Obama to launch comprehensive military strikes with an aim of destroying Assad’s air power, his military command and control, Syria’s ballistic missiles and other military targets while giving opposition forces more arms and training.
But some lawmakers on both sides don’t want to see military action at all.
Democrats in the House of Representatives were to participate in a conference call yesterday with Obama national security adviser Susan Rice, Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The White House argues that failure to act against Assad would weaken any deterrence against the use of chemical weapons.
On Sunday, Kerry said the US received new evidence in the form of blood and hair samples to show sarin gas was used in the August 21 attack.
“We know that the regime ordered this attack,” Kerry said. “We know they prepared for it. We know where the rockets came from. We know where they landed. We know the damage that was done afterward.”
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee plans a meeting today, and the Senate Armed Service Committee will gather a day later.
McCain said Obama had asked him to come to the White House specifically to discuss Syria.
In a television interview, he said Obama had “encouraged our enemies” by effectively shifting his decision to Congress.
So far, Obama is finding few international partners willing to engage in Syria. Only France is firmly on board among the major military powers.
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