Pelosi and Boenher will never call the vote. The votes cannot be bought. Obama will get a Senate vote, claim victory, then attack.
This is distinctly different from what happened in Iraq in a couple of respects. First and foremost, evidence, the intelligence, did not support the threat that was being described by the Bush Administration at the time. I was a senior Democrat on the Intelligence committee, and was one who received all of the documents—by law, they must show us what the documentation is. The evidence did not support the threat.
The intelligence this time does support the facts: that the Bashar Assad regime is responsible for the chemical weapons attack on [his] own people. Any violation of human rights, all of the killings that went on, really challenged the conscience of the world. But when you use a weapon of mass destruction against your own people … you not only challenge the conscience of the world, you challenge the credibility of the world leadership.
Is there lingering fatigue from Iraq?
The country is weary of war. There is absolutely no question about that. My caucus is a reflection of our constituents and they are weary of war. They do not want involvement. And that’s why we weren’t involved even though 100,000 people have been killed already in the conflict in Syria.
What the Bush administration was asking the country to do on the basis of a false premise was to go to war. This isn’t about going to war. This is about a limited, tailored strike, of short duration, for a purpose, which is the use of weapons of mass destruction.
If this is approved, does it set a precedent?
We’re talking about a highly unusual event…Hopefully, if this does happen, it will be a message to everyone—the North Koreans, the Iranians, the Syrians, anyone who would use a WMD or threaten to use one—that that’s probably not a good idea.
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