Obama urges prompt decision in talks over strike on Syria
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President Barack Obama said yesterday he’s confident Congress will authorize a limited military strike in Syria, and he won the support of the top Republican in Congress, who said it was something “the United States as a country needs to do.”
House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner emerged from a White House meeting with Obama and other top lawmakers and said the US must respond to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons. Boehner said only the US has the capability to stop Assad and warn others around the world that such actions will not be tolerated.
Obama urged Congress to hold a prompt vote once it returns from holiday next week.
He also tried to assure the public that involvement in Syria will be a “limited, proportional step.”
“This is not Iraq, and this is not Afghanistan,” Obama said.
He met with top lawmakers hours before he leaves on a three-day trip to Europe, with a visit to Sweden and a G20 summit in Russia.
The US says it has proof that the Assad government is behind sarin gas attacks that Washington claims killed at least 1,429 people, including more than 400 children. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which collects information from a network of anti-government activists, says it has so far only been able to confirm 502 dead.
Boehner’s support is key, but opposition Republicans in Congress do not speak with one voice.
And after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, polls show most Americans opposed to any new military action overseas. Some lawmakers say Obama still hasn’t presented good evidence that Assad’s forces were responsible for the August 21 attack. Others say he hasn’t explained why intervening is in America’s interest.
Those questions come a decade after the Bush administration badly misrepresented the case that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Yesterday’s meeting included Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, who were going to Capitol Hill for testimony later in the day before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A classified briefing open to all members of Congress was planned as well.
House Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor also said he would support Obama’s call for military action against Syria.
Obama also won conditional support on Monday from two of his fiercest foreign policy critics, Republican Senators. John McCain and Lindsey Graham.
McCain said yesterday he is prepared to vote for the authorization that Obama seeks, but he told NBC he wouldn’t back a resolution that fails to change the battlefield equation, where Assad still has the upper hand.
Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CBS he believes the panel will back Obama if the administration explains “the full case” for the use of force as well as what it sees as the end result.
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