Marie Harf briefs reporters at the State Department
about Syria on Wednesday
As of Wednesday afternoon, 92 lawmakers—76 Republicans and 16 Democrats—have
signed a letter demanding that President Obama seek congressional approval before taking any military action in Syria. Circulated by Republican Scott Rigell of Virginia, the letter states: "We stand ready to come back into session, consider the facts before us, and share the burden of decisions made regarding U.S. involvement in the quickly escalating Syrian conflict.” Congress is not scheduled to be in session again until Sept. 9.
Depending on who is doing the interpreting, presidents either are or are not required to obtain congressional approval in advance under the 40-year-old War Powers Act for any military interventions unless the United States has been directly attacked. But the interpretations are murky. Rigell said the administration's intervention in Libya in 2011 was unconstitutional because the president did not get congressional approval. The White House has argued that it did not require such approval because the intervention was a NATO action.
An imminent military intervention against Syria was strongly telegraphed in a short, harsh speech by Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday. Unnamed official sources told reporters earlier this week that an attack could occur within days, perhaps as early as Thursday.
Such an attack, various anonymous in-the-know speculators have said, could be launched solely with Tomahawk missiles based on the four U.S. destroyers now positioned in the eastern Mediterranean, and possibly from submarines presumed to be there as well. Or it could include missiles and fighter-bomber attacks. Those require far more preparation and support, and they run the obvious risk of U.S. casualties even though intelligence experts believe the Syrian air defense network is highly vulnerable to pre-emptive strikes.
A closed-door meeting of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council ended today without any action being taken on a U.S.-backed British proposal to condemn the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government and to intervene militarily with the international body's imprimatur to protect Syrian civilians from further attacks.
One person at the meeting was cited by the Associated Press as saying the Russians were the reason no action was approved. Under a dubiously worded headline, the Los Angeles Times said the Russians had "torpedoed" what the newspaper called "a final Western effort" to get U.N. approval. It reported that the United States had obtained endorsement from NATO. The endorsement doesn't mean the alliance will participate, however.
3:56 PM PT: The latest count on Rigell's letter from the Washington Post is 98 Republicans and 18 Democrats.
Please read about further developments in a possible war with Syria below the fold.
At a press briefing Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters:
"We see no avenue forward, given continued Russian opposition to any meaningful Council action on Syria."
"We cannot be held up in responding by Russia's continued intransigence at the United Nations, and quite frankly the situation is so serious that it demands a response," Harf continued, hinting that Washington would proceed with its plans regardless of the Security Council's outcome.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his British counterpart William Hague that it was necessary "to wait for the results" of the UN chemical weapons team's results.
The spark for intervention occurred Aug. 21 when a chemical attack occurred in an area outside Damascus. Nobody denies that a chemical attack took place—not leaders in Russia or Iran who back the Syrian regime, nor the regime itself. But the Syrian government, which has been fighting against a divided opposition since March, claims the rebels launched the attack that some sources now estimate killed 1,300 people and injured perhaps another 2,000. Harf said it is the view of U.S. officials that none of the rebel groups, neither the main opposition nor an extremist fundamentalist faction, have the capability to undertake chemical attacks of the sort now being investigated by a U.N. team.
Harf repeated what she and other U.S. officials have said previously about the U.N. inspections being largely irrelevant because they are only being conducted to determine whether there was a chemical attack and the extent of its impacts. Inspectors have no mandate to decide culpability in the matter.
In terms of when intervention might actually occur, Harf said the administration is operating on "our own timeline."
The British have indicated they are on board with intervention, though not quite as avidly as the French. Foreign Secretary William Hague said Wednesday after a meeting of Britain's National Security Council that the United Nations should:
"shoulder its responsibility" over Syria; if it failed to do so, however, Britain and and its allies would act on their own.
"This is the first use of chemical warfare in the 21st century," he said. "It has to be unacceptable. We have to confront something that is a war crime, something that is a crime against humanity."
That's not strictly accurate. In November 2004, as the U.S. later admitted, white phosphorus was used in the second battle of Fallujah in a manner that violated the
Chemical Weapons Convention.
Although Hague said Britain will act, there's the matter of two votes that parliament must take before that can happen. On Thursday, the House of Commons will give a thumbs up or down on a motion deploring the use of chemicals and seeking a U.N. resolution in support of taking action to protect Syrian civilians. But even if that motion is approved—which is likely given that the Labour Party has retreated from its earlier withdrawal of support for it—a second motion authorizing action must be voted upon after the U.N. inspectors present their report. There's no chance that report will be ready before early next week.