Obama, Syria, Nevermind

Obama has obviously done a 180, much to the chagrin of his mainstream media shills who had been beating war drums all last week, but his effort to "save face" and have Congress back Syria action may be nothing more than an act (the proposal Obama sent to Congress is DOA -- dead on arrival -- see below). Assuming no one in Assad's forces is stupid enough to use poison gas between now and then, Syria will be forgotten in less than three weeks -- of course there will be some momentary gnashing of teeth and finger-pointing, but the bottom line is: 1) Americans do not want the US government going around the world trying to "right every wrong;" 2) every time the US government jumps into a situation in the Middle East, it makes a bad situation worse (Iraq, etc.); 3) no patriotic American wants to help Al-Qaeda which forms part of the opposition to Syria's government (the enemy of my enemy is my friend -- Josef Stalin murdered millions of Russians but Churchill and Roosevelt supported Stalin in World War II); 4) there is credible evidence that both sides in Syria have used gas; 5) Lobbing a few missiles into Syria will not make things "better" but in fact probably make things worse, setting off attacks on Israel, etc.

CURL: Obama's 2014 calculation: Let's have a war - Washington Times: "Consider this: Mr. Obama made his dramatic Rose Garden statement Saturday — then headed to the golf course. Congress has no plans to cut short its 30-day vacation, and the president did not call lawmakers back. So much for urgency. The conventional wisdom is, as usual, wrong. Losing the congressional vote won’t be an embarrassment for the president, as all the talking heads are still parroting. A loss would be a double win. First, because a “No” vote would allow the foreign policy neophyte to walk away from his blundering “red line” declaration on chemical weapons (“I wanted to go in, but Congress said no”)..."

Syria resolution will be ‘a very tough sell’ in Congress, lawmakers say - The Washington Post: "Leading lawmakers dealt bipartisan rejection Sunday to President Obama’s request to strike Syrian military targets, saying the best hope for congressional approval would be to narrow the scope of the resolution. From the Democratic dean of the Senate to tea party Republicans in their second terms, lawmakers said the White House’s initial request to use force against Syria will be rewritten in the coming days to try to shore up support in a skeptical Congress. But some veteran lawmakers expressed doubt that even the new use-of-force resolution would win approval, particularly in the House."

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