White House seeks broad Syria mandate

National self-defense or actions explicitly authorized by the UN Security Council are the only two kinds of military action acceptable under international law, O’Connell noted.

Secretary of State John Kerry has asserted on several occasions that the president has inherent power to act in the nation self-defense. “He has the right to do that no matter what Congress does,” Kerry said on CNN’s State of the Union program. “But the President believes, and I hope we will prove to the world, that we are stronger as a nation, our democracy is stronger when we respect the rights of the Congress to also weigh in on this.”

The Washington Post reports that since the President’s decision Saturday to go to Congress, the administration launched what it described as a “flood the zone” campaign to persuade lawmakers to authorize military action against Syria. Officials said Monday that they are willing to rewrite the proposed resolution to clarify that any operation would be limited in scope and duration and would not include the use of ground troops.

After meeting with the president Monday at the White House, Senators John McCain (R-Arizona) warned that if Congress rejects the resolution, “the consequences would be catastrophic. The credibility of this country with friends and adversaries alike would be shredded, and there would be not only implications for this president but for future presidencies as well.”

The Washington Post notes that the administration’s openness to negotiating new language for its proposed resolution is an attempt to address concerns, voiced on the left and the right, that the draft is too vague. Doing so would also put into writing some of the reassurances that Obama has offered in his statements.

“To secure a yes from Congress, the White House will need to make a compelling intelligence presentation, have persuasive answers to questions about what it will do if the Assad government persists in using chemical weapons despite a U.S. military strike, and write authorizing language that is neither too expansive for skeptics nor too limited for hawks,” James Lindsay, director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Post.

The broad language of the proposed authorization may be a problem for lawmakers who are reluctant to see the United States becoming involved in the Syrian civil war, but this very language, and explanations given by President Obama in private, have persuaded two hawkish critics of the administration’s Syria policy, Senators McCain and Graham, to call on fellow lawmakers to support the resolution. McCain and Graham have been critical of Obama for doing too little to support the rebels in Syria, but both emerged from a meeting with the president saying Obama has given them new assurances which addressed their complaints that the United States has not done enough to make the Syrian battlefield more even, and that it is now heavily tilted against the forces opposing Assad’s government. The two senators strongly suggested that the White House may further expand U.S. aid to the rebels, and that the administration will be articulating a more comprehensive Syria strategy this week.

“There seems to be emerging from this administration a pretty solid plan to upgrade the opposition, to get other regional players involved,” Graham said after their session with Obama on Monday.

McCain added: “Before this meeting, we had not had this indication. Now the question is whether that will be put into a concrete strategy that we can sell to our colleagues and that we agree with.”