A decisive week for the White House
With the congressional vote on Syria, Obama is facing a crucial moment in his presidency
When Barack Obama addresses the nation today to announce his plans for an attack on Syria — about which public opinion and Congress appear to be skeptical — he will be facing probably the most decisive moment of his mandate.
The American president, as was expected, has returned from the G20 summit empty-handed. The conclave of world leaders, divided as to the best response to the Syrian regime’s atrocities, went no further than to condemn Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons. The European Union was not even capable of formulating a single response to the crisis.
The moment of truth on Syria is at hand, then, with the vote in the US Congress, which promises to be close, in view of the number of undecided votes in both parties. This circumstance, added to the fact that most of the public, according to the polls, are opposed to a new military adventure in the Middle East, makes Obama’s message an extraordinarily important one. An importance enhanced by the fact that the president is now subject to renewed pressures to postpone his final decision to attack, pending a definitive report from UN experts — or even to go back and seek, once again, the approval of the so far disregarded Security Council.
But the course to be adopted by the White House, after the vote in the two Chambers of Congress, constitutes a definitive moment for a president whose declared mission has been to phase his country out of two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, and, in a broader scope, out of the position that the United States has come to occupy on the world chessboard. This lies within the larger question of what is now to be expected of the superpower in a scenario rather different from the one that existed 10 years ago, when Russia did not feel it could afford its present defiance, while China had not crystallized as a definitive counter-power.
Nothing better illustrates that change than the yes vote Obama is now seeking from the American legislators before attacking the Syrian regime — a decision that the US president has so far attempted to avoid at all costs, though it forms an unquestioned part of his executive prerogatives. Indeed, it would be unthinkable, as in the case of the United Kingdom, if both Washington and London were not marked by the terrible legacy of Iraq.
No sure thing
The result of this vote is far from a sure thing, in spite of the assurances of support the White House has obtained from leading figures in Congress. Should Obama lose the vote, his presidency will fall under a shadow. It may be supposed, however, that the legislative branch will put principles ahead of party divisions. And of these principles, none is now so important as that of reinforcing the credibility of the United States. Obama has already debilitated the general confidence in US foreign policy and its capacity for dissuasion by delaying his response to crimes on the scale of those committed by Damascus. To take a firm line on the Assad regime is now indispensable if the president is to reaffirm the moral authority of the United States.
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