Two words: chemical warfare.
Our country is considering engaging the threat of chemical warfare that Syria has established within their own country. How will the President react to this sudden catastrophe? What are the possible outcomes that could be withdrawn from it? And why would Syria cripple themselves like this in the first place?
Only a mere three days before the rockets fell outside Damascus, a team of Syrian experts gathered in the suburb of Adra, filling warheads with deadly chemicals to kill Syrian rebels. This task had become routine by the third year of Syria’s civil battle. The preparations, as described by U.S. intelligence analysts, continued from Aug. 18 until just after midnight on Aug. 21, when the projectiles were loaded into rocket launchers behind the government’s defensive lines.
Then, at 2:30 a.m., a half-dozen densely populated neighborhoods were jolted awake by a series of explosions, followed by an oozing blanket of suffocating gas, killing thousands of innocent civilians and children.
Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, opened a hearing on the use of military force in Syria. He stated that U.S. government officials were having a difficult time making decision on how to respond to Syria’s chemical attack on its people.
President Obama has turned to Menendez in recent days to help build support in Congress for a military strike against Syria, but the Senator said that the decision relies on how to respond “to the horrific chemical attack of August 21st that took the lives of 1,429 Syrians, including at least 426 children.”
“The images of that day were sickening. In my view, the world cannot ignore the inhumanity and horror of this act,” said Menendez.
Obama worked assertively at courting Republican leaders such as Senator John McCain of Arizona and House speaker John Boehner of Ohio, both of whom walked away from multiple meetings with the president within the last 24 hours expressing support for a strike against Syria.
Secretary of State John Kerry stressed that a potential military strike against Syria would involve no American boots on the ground. Kerry said there was no problem in having language in legislation that, in his words, “has zero capacity for American troops on the ground.”
However, in opposition to this claim, some lawmakers expressed great reluctance about being drawn into larger conflict.
Senator Marco Rubio, a Floridan Republican and vocal critic of Syria’s Bashar Assad, criticized the Obama administration for failing to heed his call and the pleas of others to take action years ago. “When America ignores these problems, these problems don’t ignore us,” Rubio told senior administration officials at a Senate hearing. “Yes, this is a horrible incident where perhaps a 1,000 people died, but before this incident 100,000 people had died…and nothing happened.”
Menendez’s lengthy opening sought to address concerns of some of the skeptics to Obama’s proposal for a limited military strike.
“Yes, there are risks to action,” Menendez said, “but the consequences of inaction are greater and graver still: further humanitarian disaster in Syria; regional instability; the loss of American credibility around the world; an emboldened Iran and North Korea; and the disintegration of international law.”
Senator Bob Corker, the committee’s ranking Republican from Tennessee, concurred with Menendez that the United States needs to take action against Syria.
Senator Barbara Boxer, a Californian Democrat, said that unlike the war in Iraq, which she opposed, a resolution on involvement in Syria would promise a limited amount of military engagement and probably not even any boots on the ground.
“I will support a targeted effort but not a blank check against Syria gassing its people to death,” said Senator Boxer.
Obama gained some ground in his drive for congressional backing of a military strike against Syria, winning support from Boehner while administration officials agreed to explicitly rule out the use of U.S. combat troops in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack.
Boehner also allegedly emerged from a meeting at the White House and said the United States has “enemies around the world that need to understand that we’re not going to tolerate this type of behavior. We also have allies around the world and allies in the region who also need to know that America will be there and stand up when it’s necessary.”