Prez faces conflict on home front, too
By forcing a congressional vote on a military strike in Syria, President Obama is taking a high-stakes gamble that not only risks his own international reputation should lawmakers balk, but also places his domestic agenda in peril.
Even before the proposed Syrian strike resolution, lawmakers were bracing for a host of domestic battles next week when they return from their long summer recess.
Congress has less than a month to come up with a spending bill that will avoid a government shutdown, and Republican leaders have vowed to allow the government to grind to a halt rather than fund Obamacare on the eve of its full implementation.
In mid-October, lawmakers face a deadline over raising the country’s debt ceiling.
Meanwhile, the House has yet to act on an immigration reform plan, months after the passage of the Senate bill, diminishing hopes a deal can be struck on an issue that had been a priority to members of both parties earlier this year.
Now, before lawmakers can touch any of those pressing matters affecting Americans here at home, they have to debate whether or not to engage militarily with Syria, a country run by a president who by most accounts is a murderous dictator so far undeterred by Obama’s threats.
Making the case for a strike won’t be easy. Already some Democrats and the Libertarian faction of the GOP have vocally opposed entering into a military entanglement, while Republicans, including U.S. Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, are pressing for a far more aggressive plan of attack — and a better sales pitch to the American people — from the White House.
“A weak response is almost as bad as doing nothing,” McCain told reporters yesterday after he and Graham emerged from a closeddoor meeting with the president. Acting without a plan that would “degrade (Bashar Assad’s) chemical weapon delivery system” and “upgrade the opposition” will be, McCain said, “catastrophic in its consequences.”
McCain left the door open for supporting a beefed-up version of the president’s plan — support that will be necessary for Obama to have any chance at getting rank-and-file Republicans to back him. Then, it will take even more cajoling by Secretary of State John Kerry and other officials to keep Democrats from jumping ship.
Hammering out a plan that will satisfy lawmakers on both sides won’t be easy — and even if it’s possible, it will likely cost the president every cent of the tiny amount of political capital he’s got under the Capitol Hill dome.
Syrian strike or no, domestic policies are most likely to take the direct hit.