Obama’s Battle for Syria Votes, Taut and Uphill

[cali]

Each morning for the last week, at 7:45, more than a dozen White House aides have mustered in the corner office of President Obama’s chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough, to get their marching orders for what has become the most intense, uphill lobbying campaign of the Obama presidency.

The White House’s goal is to persuade Congress to authorize a limited military strike against Syria to punish it for a deadly chemical weapons attack. But after a frenetic week of wall-to-wall intelligence briefings, dozens of phone calls and hours of hearings with senior members of Mr. Obama’s war council, more and more lawmakers, Republican and Democrat, are lining up to vote against the president.

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In the House, the number of rank-and-file members who have declared that they will oppose or are leaning against military action is approaching 218, the point of no return for the White House. Getting them to reverse their positions will be extremely difficult.

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But people on Capitol Hill said the White House’s initial case for action proved unpersuasive, particularly in the hearings with Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/us/politics/obamas-battle-for-syria-votes-taut-and-uphill.html?google_editors_picks=true&_r=0

[cali]

1. the article details AIPAC's role

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On the day the president is speaking, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee plans to blanket Capitol Hill with 250 advocates, having already contacted dozens of lawmakers to urge them to support a strike.

The advocates will carry a simple message, according to a person involved in the effort: Syria is a proxy for Iran, and the failure to enforce Mr. Obama’s “red line” against the use of chemical weapons by Mr. Assad will be interpreted in Tehran as a sign that he will not enforce a red line against the production of nuclear weapons by the Iranian government.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/us/politics/obamas-battle-for-syria-votes-taut-and-uphill.html?pagewanted=2&google_editors_picks=true&_r=0

[David__77]

2. I the administration is delusional.

Obviously, the opposition to the intervention has very little to do with whether or not the government did or did not use chemical weapons. Atrocity videos or any such thing aren't going to want people to get involved.

[cali]

4. or just plain desperate.

Kerry's comments today reek of desperation.

[David__77]

5. I guess I have a hard time thinking this isn't cynical somehow.

I cannot at all fathom how any analyst could come to the conclusion that the proposed "limited strike" will not be harmful to the United States. And so the desperation, which I think it real, doesn't make any sense to me. Are the people behind this living in a vacuum? They think there are no consequences to implementing some "principled" scheme?

[LittleBlue]

3. I feel like we elected Romney