Obama seeks support for attacking Syria while pursuing diplomacy
Obama: No boots on the ground in Syria
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Obama says to Congress and all Americans: watch the video of Syrian victims
- President Obama says time is needed to consider Russian proposal
- Syria's agreement to a Russian proposal changes the equation
- Obama says a continuing credible military threat is necessary
Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama tried
Tuesday to sell a military intervention he never wanted to an American
public that opposes it, telling the nation that he needed authorization
to attack Syria as leverage in a newly emerged diplomatic opening from
Russia.
Calling the United States
"the anchor of global security," Obama offered moral, political and
strategic arguments for being ready to launch limited military strikes
while trying to negotiate a diplomatic solution to what he called
Syria's violation of a global ban on chemical weapons.
"Our ideals and
principles, as well as our national security, are at stake in Syria,
along with our leadership of a world where we seek to ensure that the
worst weapons will never be used," Obama said in making the case that
the United States must act when dictators such as Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad "brazenly" violate international treaties intended to
protect humanity.
The 15-minute nationally
televised speech initially was planned as Obama's final push to win
support from a skeptical public and Congress for his planned attack on
Syria for what his administration calls a major chemical weapons attack
on August 21 that killed more than 1,400 people in suburban Damascus.
New offer impacts Obama's challenge
What Senator wants to hear from Obama?
However, Monday's
unexpected diplomatic overture by Russia changed the strategic and
political equation. Under the Russian plan, which still lacks any
details, Syria would turn over its chemical weapons stockpiles to
international control.
That would meet Obama's main criterion of ending the chemical weapons threat by the al-Assad regime.
However, Russia canceled a
U.N. Security Council meeting it had called for Tuesday and rejected an
initial proposal by France for the framework of a resolution, raising
questions about whether the diplomatic effort was serious or a stall
tactic to put off a U.S. attack on Syria.
For Obama, the Russian
proposal prompted by a seemingly off-the-cuff comment by U.S. Secretary
of State John Kerry further muddied an already complex challenge in
Syria compounded by public concerns of another possible military
quagmire.
The president called the
Russian offer an encouraging sign, but warned that "it's too early to
tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that
the Assad regime keeps its commitments."
Therefore, he said, he asked Congress to postpone a vote for now on authorizing military force against Syria.
In addition, the
diplomatic push will provide more time for United Nations inspectors to
report their findings on the August attack and allow his administration
to continue rallying support for an international response, the
president said.
Military to remain current posture
At the same time, Obama
said he ordered the U.S. military to maintain its "current posture to
keep the pressure on Assad and to be in a position to respond if
diplomacy fails."
Kerry made the same
argument at a congressional hearing Tuesday, telling legislators that
"nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of a hanging."
However, congressional support for military action reflected public opposition. A
CNN/ORC International poll
released Monday said 59% of respondents opposed congressional
authorization of military action, while 72% said American strikes would
achieve no significant goals.
In an instant poll of people who watched the speech Tuesday night, 61% favored Obama's approach compared to 37% who opposed it.
The CNN/ORC
International survey showed almost two-thirds of respondents thought the
Syria situation would be resolved through diplomatic efforts, while 47%
said Obama made a convincing case for military action compared to 50%
who said he didn't.
By CNN's best estimate,
the sample of poll respondents -- 37% Democrats, 20% Republicans and 43%
independents -- was about seven percentage points more Democratic than
the general public.
Critics call the situation faced by Obama his own doing for a confused Syria policy that he has never fully explained.
"There's a degree of
incoherence that I have never seen the likes of," veteran Republican
Sen. John McCain of Arizona told CNN on Tuesday.
In the most emotional
part of the speech, Obama cited the videos his administration made
public that showed victims of the Syrian sarin gas attack.
"The images from this
massacre are sickening: men, women, children lying in rows, killed by
poison gas, others foaming at the mouth, gasping for breath, a father
clutching his dead children, imploring them to get up and walk," the
president said in emphasizing the horror of chemical weapons.
"The question now is
what the United States of America and the international community is
prepared to do about it, because what happened to those people -- to
those children -- is not only a violation of international law, it's
also a danger to our security," Obama added.
Directly addressing
questions he received from members of Congress and letters from the
public, the president insisted that any U.S. military strike would be
limited in scope and mission.
No American boots on the ground
"I know that after the
terrible toll of Iraq and Afghanistan, the idea of any military action
-- no matter how limited -- is not going to be popular," he said, later
declaring: "I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria. I will
not pursue an open-ended action like Iraq or Afghanistan. I will not
pursue a prolonged air campaign like Libya or Kosovo. This would be a
targeted strike to achieve a clear objective, deterring the use of
chemical weapons and degrading Assad's capabilities."
At the same time, he
rejected criticism that such a limited military response would prove
meaningless, saying "the United States military doesn't do pin pricks."
"Even a limited strike
will send a message to Assad that no other nation can deliver," Obama
said. "I don't think we should remove another dictator with force. We
learned from Iraq that doing so makes us responsible for all that comes
next. But a targeted strike can makes Assad -- or any other dictator --
think twice before using chemical weapons."
He described the U.S. role in the world as "doing more than forging international agreements; it has meant enforcing them."
"The burdens of
leadership are often heavy, but the world's a better place because we
have borne them," Obama said before making a direct appeal to both sides
of the political spectrum.
"To my friends on the
right, I ask you to reconcile your commitment to America's military
might with the failure to act when a cause is so plainly just," he said.
"To my friends on the left, I ask you to reconcile your belief in
freedom and dignity for all people with those images of children
writhing in pain and going still on a cold hospital floor, for sometimes
resolutions and statements of condemnation are simply not enough."
He concluded by
challenging "every member of Congress and those of you watching at home
tonight to view those videos of the attack, and then ask what kind of
world will we live in if the United States of America sees a dictator
brazenly violate international law with poison gas and we choose to look
the other way?"
McCain, Graham react
McCain and fellow GOP
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina responded by saying Obama failed
to speak forcefully enough "about the need to increase our military
assistance to moderate opposition forces in Syria, such as the Free
Syrian Army."
They called for the
United States and its allies on the U.N. Security Council to
"immediately" offer a resolution "that lays out what steps Syria would
have to take to give up its chemical weapons, including making a full
and accurate declaration of all of its chemical weapons and granting
international monitors unfettered access to all sites in Syria that
possess these weapons."
"This resolution would
have to threaten serious consequences if the Assad regime does not
comply," they said, calling for an up-or-down vote by the Security
Council, where Syrian allies Russia and China have so far blocked any
U.N. action against Syria.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, a
Maryland Democrat and staunch Obama supporter who is undecided on Syria,
praised him for "a very good job" but said his position on the issue
remained unchanged.
"It was not a wasted
speech," said Cummings, noting his constituents are tired of war. "I
thought he made a great moral argument."
Obama's reluctance on Syria
For two years, Obama
resisted calls by conservative hawks such McCain to back rebels fighting
the al-Assad regime, saying the United States sought no role in the
Syrian civil war.
When evidence of
chemical weapons use emerged earlier this year, and Hezbollah fighters
from Lebanon helped al-Assad's forces gain the upper hand, Obama agreed
in June to provide military aid to the rebels.
The August attack
clearly crossed a "red line" he declared earlier against chemical
weapons use, prompting his decision for what he hoped would be an
international military response against Syria.
However, Britain's
Parliament voted against joining a military response, denying Obama a
normally reliable ally. He then decided to seek authorization from
Congress to provide political cover and buy time to build a broader
international coalition.
Now legislators from
both parties are threatening to oppose a resolution authorizing a
military response, and Obama has asked for time to let the diplomatic
process play out.
Kerry heads to Geneva on
Thursday for talks with his Russian counterpart, who first offered his
government's proposal Monday after Kerry earlier said Syria's turning
over its chemical weapons was the only way to avoid a U.S. attack.
Syria
agreed Tuesday to the Russian proposal,
with Foreign Minister Walid Moallem saying his government was ready to
disclose the location of its chemical weapons, halt production, and show
its facilities to representatives of Russia, the United Nations, and
other unspecified states.
At the same time,
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that "all of this will
only mean anything if the United States and other nations supporting it
tell us that they're giving up their plan to use force against Syria."
"You can't really ask
Syria, or any other country, to disarm unilaterally while military
action against it is being contemplated," Putin said in an interview
with a Russian television network.
Obama: Threat of strikes still critical
For his part, Obama
sought to persuade Americans of the opposite -- that the diplomatic
stirrings by Russia and Syria occurred because of the credible threat of
a military attack intended to deter Syria from using its chemical
weapons again.
The president has not said whether he would launch strikes without the support of Congress.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan
group of eight senators is working on an alternative resolution to the
one authorizing military action already passed by the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee. It would include "guidelines, reporting process and
benchmarks that have to be met," McCain told CNN.
On the House side,
Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said he was working on a
version of a resolution that would authorize a military response if the
diplomatic process failed to yield an acceptable result in 30 days.
The Obama administration
has launched a sweeping lobbying effort, with the president meeting on
Capitol Hill on Tuesday with senators from both parties as part of a
series of classified briefings, hearings and other consultations on the
Syria issue.
Since Friday, the
administration has spoken with at least 93 senators and more than 350
members of the House, a White House official said Tuesday.
Despite such outreach, indications were that the congressional push wasn't working.
Sen. Mitch McConnell,
the top-ranking Republican in the Senate, announced Tuesday he will vote
against authorizing military action on Syria.
So did Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who won the seat vacated by Kerry when he became secretary of state.
A running CNN vote count
showed most members of Congress remained undecided, with significant
opposition in both chambers among the much smaller numbers who have
announced their decision leaving the outcome in doubt.
