Why Did Obama Punt Syria To Congress?

As the rhetoric sur­round­ing what the United States should do about Syria inten­si­fies, I won­der what the President of the United States real­ly thinks? Some have argued the President’s red-line com­ment awhile back is the rea­son the United States is now embroiled in this debate about war and peace. The fact is that as the President said, it was nev­er his red line to begin with. The use of Chemical weapons have long been banned by the International community.

The mod­ern use of chem­i­cal weapons began with World War I, when both sides to the con­flict used poi­so­nous gas to inflict ago­niz­ing suf­fer­ing and to cause sig­nif­i­cant bat­tle­field casu­al­ties. Such weapons basi­cal­ly con­sist­ed of well-known com­mer­cial chem­i­cals put into stan­dard muni­tions such as grenades and artillery shells. Chlorine, phos­gene (a chok­ing agent) and mus­tard gas (which inflicts painful burns on the skin) were among the chem­i­cals used. The results were indis­crim­i­nate and often dev­as­tat­ing. Nearly 100,000 deaths result­ed. Since World War I, chem­i­cal weapons have caused more than one mil­lion casu­al­ties globally.

As a result of pub­lic out­rage, the Geneva Protocol, which pro­hib­it­ed the use of chem­i­cal weapons in war­fare, was signed in 1925. While a wel­come step, the Protocol had a num­ber of sig­nif­i­cant short­com­ings, includ­ing the fact that it did not pro­hib­it the devel­op­ment, pro­duc­tion or stock­pil­ing of chem­i­cal weapons. Also prob­lem­at­ic was the fact that many States that rat­i­fied the Protocol reserved the right to use pro­hib­it­ed weapons against States that were not par­ty to the Protocol or as retal­i­a­tion in kind if chem­i­cal weapons were used against them. Poison gasses were used dur­ing World War II in Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camps and in Asia, although chem­i­cal weapons were not used on European bat­tle­fields.http://​www​.un​.org/​d​i​s​a​r​m​a​m​e​n​t​/​W​M​D​/​C​h​e​m​i​c​al/

Syria has nev­er signed a glob­al treaty ban­ning the stor­age of chem­i­cal weapons and is believed to have large stocks of sarin, mus­tard gas and VX nerve agents. VX nerve agents. http://​www​.jpost​.com/​M​i​d​d​l​e​-​E​a​s​t​/​D​i​s​m​a​n​t​l​i​n​g​-​S​y​r​i​a​-​c​h​e​m​i​c​a​l​-​w​e​a​p​o​n​s​-​a​r​s​e​n​a​l​-​w​o​u​l​d​-​b​e​-​t​o​u​g​h​-​t​a​s​k​-​3​2​5​692.

This President is nobody’s fool, he is a smart deep think­ing man. Like many pres­i­dents before him this pres­i­dent does not want to cede an inch of pow­er to the Congress. Some would argue this is true because they like the pow­er. I tend to lean toward the fact that Congress usu­al­ly stand in the way of a President’s agen­da. One of the many crit­i­cisms of President Obama is that he is not deeply engaged with Congress. I fail to grasp why he would, in light of the blan­ket obstruc­tion­ist tac­tics of this Republican caucus.

Why then would President Obama punt the issue of Syria’s alleged use of Chemical weapons to this no-pro­duc­tive con­gress? I pre­sume this President wants to make sure that there can be no legit­i­mate argu­ment made that he did noth­ing. At the same time he wants the brain-dead right-wing nut jobs to duke it out and share in the con­se­quences of inac­tion. Already there are more than enough rea­sons to believe that the reg­u­lar obstruc­tion­ists are not going to sup­port any mil­i­tary action by this President against Syria. Remember these are the very same idiots who gave George Bush a blank check to wage war in Iraq on fraud­u­lent, trumped-up alle­ga­tions of weapons pos­ses­sion , not clear usage of banned Chemical weapons, what hypocrites!

Obama was elect­ed because he was opposed to war. That oppo­si­tion sep­a­rat­ed him from Hillary Clinton who was far more hawk­ish in her rhetoric and with her vote as a mem­ber of the Senate. Since then Obama as end­ed the Iraq war and sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced America’s foot-prints in Afghanistan. Is it log­i­cal to believe Obama does not want war? Is it out of the realm of pos­si­bil­i­ties he does­n’t want to be the guy who watched and did noth­ing as Syria used chem­i­cal weapons on its own pop­u­la­tion? Is it log­i­cal to assume no America President want to cede any author­i­ty to the leg­isla­tive branch?

If the above is true , can we then con­clude that Obama bril­liant­ly punt­ed the Syria hot pota­to to the do noth­ing Congress? Can we assume Obama want­ed to expose the dys­func­tion­al Congress , while he wages a par­al­lel cam­paign for action, using Kerry and Hagel? I don’t know about you but I say bril­liant and inge­nious, once again the moron­ic Republicans are left look­ing as stu­pid as they have always been. Whether you sup­port America’s mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion into yet anoth­er Middle east­ern nation is impor­tant to debate. What is bla­tant­ly obvi­ous is the hypocrisy of the Right in this coun­try when it comes to America’s vital inter­est. Politics and race trumps everything.