Here is an article from CNN.com by Anne-Marie Slaughter, president and CEO of the New America Foundation and director of policy planning in the U.S. State Department from 2009 to 2011, stating that Obama made the right decision to let Congress decide whether or not to strike Syria for their use of chemical weapons on their own people:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/04/opinion/slaughter-syria-obama/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7
President Barack Obama has done the right thing by asking Congress to
authorize the use of force against Syria to punish President Bashar
al-Assad for using chemical weapons on his own people.
I say that even as
someone who has been a sharp critic of the administration's Syria policy
and an outspoken advocate of intervening in various ways to try to
protect the millions of innocent Syrians whose lives are at risk,
prevent the conflict from destabilizing the region and support members
of the Syrian opposition who share our values.
The president, as he announced in May,
is trying to steer this nation back to a world in which we are not
permanently at war and we do not turn to our military as the weapon of
first resort in any international crisis.
The Framers of our Constitution wanted to ensure that the decision to
send our young men and women into battle could not be taken lightly.
Both Democratic and Republican presidents have steadily chafed at those
restraints over the course of the decades since World War II as
traditional wars and formal declarations of war have faded away. George
W. Bush's proclamation of a "war on terror," authorized by Congress, put
this nation in a state of permanent emergency in which the commander in
chief has had extraordinary powers.
That is unhealthy and
dangerous for a democracy. A former constitutional law professor, Obama
understands that although he has a limited reserve of power that could
allow him to act alone, his power will be far greater with Congress. The
constitutional framework is designed be a check in the best sense -- to
require our leaders to make their case to the American people, to act
on the basis of reasoned arguments about the nature of American
interests that will stand up far beyond the White House Situation Room.
And the American people should back him on this decision, for three reasons.
First, we are protecting
ourselves and our allies. We cannot afford to live in a world in which
nations can use chemical weapons with impunity. The taboo against
chemical weapons is particularly strong, for good reason. Dying by the
breath we need to live holds a particular terror. The parents of the
children whose shrouds we see could not protect them even with their own
bodies, like human shields from a bullet or a bomb.
The United States stood by when Iraq used chemical weapons first against
Iran and later against its own people, to our shame. But we must not
make that mistake again. Chemical weapons are the weapons of the weak
against the strong, which is why al-Assad, has been driven to use them
repeatedly, according to U.S. intelligence, when his back is against the
wall, as it is now in Damascus. Should chemical weapons proliferate,
they will be the weapons of choice for terrorists.
Second, striking Syria
now will be a strike to protect the Syrian people, even if partial and
belated. It will not end the massacres carried out with conventional
weapons. But weapons of mass destruction are just that: weapons of mass
destruction. A chemical attack that kills 1,000 today can kill 10,000
tomorrow and 100,000 the day after that.
Third, the president is
asking us to do, as a nation, what a leader has to do. In his 2008
inaugural address, Obama called for a new era of responsibility in this
country, "a recognition ... that we have duties to ourselves, our nation
and the world." We have those duties not because the United States has
some unique role or mission in the world, but because we are the world's
most powerful nation. Other nations take their cues from our action or
inaction, whether we want them to or not.
If we do not act, we are
signaling that the world has suddenly become a far more permissive and
dangerous place, that taboos can be broken, and that despite the pious
words of the international community, leaders can do whatever they like
within their own borders.
If we lead, other
nations that take their responsibilities seriously as great powers will
join us. A Russian veto may prevent the U.N. Security Council from
authorizing our action in advance, but a majority of the members of the
council will not vote to condemn the strikes after the fact.
It is now time for
Congress to step up to its responsibility. The bargaining has already
begun. But the use of force after the use of chemical weapons, with the
world watching, is no place for partisan politics as usual.
Unless a clear majority of Congress opposes any action, it is incumbent
on all those members who favor some use of force to craft a compromise
that gives Obama the power to use both force and diplomacy as president
and commander in chief to restore the chemical taboo and do whatever he
can to reach a political settlement in Syria.
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