Can Obama Win by Losing in Congress?
What would it cost Barack Obama if Congress votes against taking military action in Syria? The latest counts suggest that it is a real possibility, and not one that the President can dismiss as blind Republican recalcitrance: he doesn’t have his own party behind him, either. “I knew this was going to be a heavy lift,” Obama told reporters at a press conference, in St. Petersburg, in which he said he would address the U.S. about Syria on Tuesday, and try to bring the public around to his point of view. He said that he knew that Congressmen were hearing from their constituents that they didn’t want to get involved in Syria; he hoped that could be overcome. “It’s—it’s a hard sell, but it’s something I believe in.”
The better question might be what it would cost Obama if Congress voted yes. Asking for a vote was a far better option than just bombing this past Saturday—something that seemed entirely possible when the weekend began. Anyone who doubts that should ask what this week’s G20 summit would look like in the midst of air strikes for which the President had no one behind him—or, for that matter, how this fall’s budget fights, and next year’s midterm elections, would be distorted if a war started without consent went bad. Better to not be deluded about one’s popularity. Waiting for a vote gave the Administration a chance to explain its reasoning and its plan, and for the rest of us to hear it.
The problem, as has become clear in a week of interviews and committee hearings, is that there isn’t really a plan, in the sense of figuring out what happens when the Assad regime reacts to the air strikes in any one of a half dozen ways. The Administration has done a decent job of persuading people that Assad used chemical weapons. It has done a very poor job of explaining why military strikes are the right way to react, beyond being a grand gesture. There has been a lot of talk about “degrading” forces; but what does that mean beyond breaking equipment and killing soldiers?
Thursday night, Obama had a dinner with other world leaders in St. Petersburg, which went on until the early hours of the morning. “I would say that the majority of the room is comfortable with our conclusion that Assad, the Assad government, was responsible for their use,” he told reporters. His spokesman also acknowledged that he hadn’t changed many minds. He’s got France and Turkey and maybe a few others, and a statement from about ten other countries wanting some sort of international move—just not necessarily a military strike. One of the countries that signed on to the statement, Britain, has already ruled an attack out.
The White House needs to at least recognize the possibility that so many different people, countries, and factions are against bombing Syria not just because they don’t know or care about the families that were poisoned (Obama: “Those images of those bodies can sometimes be forgotten pretty quickly”), or are suspicious of W.M.D. intelligence or are “war-weary,” or never heard of Raoul Wallenberg or Munich, or, as he suggested at the G20 this morning, “just as a matter of principle believe that if military action is to be taken, it needs to go through the U.N. Security Council.” Or because they hate Obama personally, though looking at the Congressional Republicans one can understand why he’d think so. They can be against it because it sounds like a very bad idea—impractical, ill thought out, militarily puzzling, possibly the beginning of a disastrous escalation. He is not talking to people, hard-hearted or scared, who simply will not hear. He hasn’t made the case.
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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/09/can-obama-win-in-congress-by-losing.html
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