House leaders express support for Syria strike

Washington: President Barack Obama won the support on Tuesday of Republican and Democratic leaders in the House for an attack on Syria, giving him a foundation to win broader approval for military action from a Congress that still harbours deep reservations.

Speaker John A. Boehner, who with other congressional leaders met Obama in the Oval Office, said afterward that he would "support the president's call to action," an endorsement quickly echoed by the House majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia.

Uncertainties abound, particularly in the House, where the imprimatur of the Republican leadership does not guarantee approval by rebellious rank and file, and where vocal factions in both parties are opposed to anything that could entangle the nation in another messy conflict in the Middle East.

Still, the expressions of support from top Republicans who rarely agree with Obama on anything suggest the White House may be on firmer footing than seemed the case on Saturday, when the president abruptly halted his plans for action in the face of growing protests from Congress.

On Tuesday evening, Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee agreed on a resolution that would give Obama authority to carry out a strike against Syria, for a period of 60 days, with one 30-day extension.

Shortly after that, Obama left for Sweden and Russia, where he will try to shore up an international coalition to punish Syria for a chemical weapons attack and will probably encounter some of the same debates that are cleaving the Capitol.

Before his departure, the White House intensified what has become the most extraordinary lobbying campaign of Obama's presidency as it deployed members of his war council and enlisted political alumni of his 2008 campaign to press the argument with the public.

"This is not the time for armchair isolationism," said Secretary of State John Kerry, who answered sharp questions and defended the administration's strategy for Syria in nearly four hours of sometimes sharp exchanges before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Although he appeared alongside Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel - another former senator - and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, Kerry dominated the hearings. He seemed keenly aware of the echoes of Iraq.

"We were here for that vote," Kerry said. "We voted. So we are especially sensitive - Chuck and I - to never again asking any member of Congress to take a vote on faulty intelligence. And that is why our intelligence community has scrubbed and rescrubbed the evidence."

Kerry said the intelligence proved that the "Assad regime prepared for this attack, issued instructions to prepare for this attack, warned its own forces to use gas masks," and the intelligence included "physical evidence of where the rockets came from and when."

Hagel, who, like Kerry, is a veteran of the Vietnam War, used another argument used by previous administrations: a warning that authoritarian governments with arsenals of unconventional weapons could transfer them to terrorist groups.

Casting the issue as one of self-defense, the defense secretary also underscored the threat to US military personnel across the region if chemical weapons proliferated out of Syria. He said other dictators around the world might be emboldened if the US did not punish the Assad government.

"The use of chemical weapons in Syria is not only an assault on humanity,'' Hagel said. "It is a serious threat to America's national security interests and those of our closest allies."

Before the hearing began, and again after Kerry spoke, protesters from the anti-war group Code Pink jumped up and shouted against military action. "Kerry, no more war in Syria!" one demonstrator exclaimed, adding that America needed health care and education more than military action.

Dempsey was a subdued presence in the hearing. Although he, Kerry and Hagel sought to present a unified front, they have had differences over how to respond to the conflict in Syria in recent months. Kerry has pushed to consider deeper U.S. military involvement, and Dempsey has repeatedly highlighted the risks of large-scale intervention.

Similar differences were on display among lawmakers who spoke during the Senate hearing or after the meeting at the White House with Obama, Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader, said she supported the president and sent a letter to fellow Democrats urging that they fall into line. But she conceded, "In my district, I don't think people are convinced that military action is necessary."

Pelosi's comments reflected her dilemma as a leader of the president's party, which still has a strong liberal anti-war wing. "The American people need to hear more about the intelligence," she said.

A spokesman for Boehner said that despite his support for Obama, the Republican leadership would not lean on other Republicans to vote for military action and would leave that lobbying to the White House. Boehner's stance will ease the pressure on him from members of his party, who believe the U.S. has no business in Syria. It will increase the pressure on Pelosi.

The calendar is Obama's enemy: Many members from both parties are still back in their districts hearing from constituents, and the feedback, based on numerous interviews, is overwhelmingly negative.

On Tuesday, however, a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, threw its support behind military action in Syria, citing the need to send a strong message to Iran and the militant group Hezbollah, both of which support Assad.

"Iran is watching us very carefully," said Rep. Eliot L Engel, D-N.Y., a staunch defender of Israel.