If I were a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist, the congressional vote on Syria would be the makings of an epic tale.
... as it happens I am a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist. Well, I'm a fiction writer, which is close enough to the same thing, and the narrative I see forming with Syria is delicious. Not because I think it's a good thing, or even because I think it's what's really going on, but everything is lining up in a way that says "political thriller--someone call Hollywood!"
What is the elevator pitch, you might ask? Simple: the Republican Party strikes against its own insurgency by going to war with Syria. "Presposterous!" you cry, and you might be right. You probably are. But the plot is compelling: turn the pages, suspend your disbelief, and see how it unfolds...
Picture if you will: the Republican Party is in the middle of disintegrating. In the process it's also tearing apart the United States. For too long the Republican Party gave power to a specific part of its base because that base was, from a purely tactical perspective, damned useful. They were energized, they were willing to organize, they would hit the bricks and spread the message and could skew the public's perception of what they really believed. The loudest voices get the airwaves, and they were really good at being loud.
But it's a classic theme: the leaders of the Republican Party believed they could control this beast. They believed in that so completely that they mostly ignored it unless they wanted something from it. And one day the beast grew so large that it threw off its chains and started dictating its own terms. Some of the leaders of the Republican Party were thrown down, replaced by its own creation. Other leaders saw the writing on the wall and began to cooperate in order to stay in power.
The creature wanted everything. It wanted to run the show, call the shots, and it was willing to destroy the country it wanted to rule in order to rule it. Better to rule in Hell, it decided, than to be a slave in Heaven.
The old guard of the Republican Party found itself challenged at every turn. It could not govern. It could not work with people it had worked with in the past. It was at the mercy of the monster it had fed for so long, and that monster was destroying them. What's worse, the old guard could do nothing to oppose it. It couldn't even vote to pay the countries own bills without being accused of appeasing the enemy--the enemy, of course, being everyone who did not bow it's head to the beast.
So how then to fight it? The old guard had only one tool that it wield comfortably and confidently: war, and the trappings thereof.
And then came Syria. In another time, perhaps, the issue of Syria would be a non-issue. It wouldn't require anything more than a President's decision to move troops over there for a set period of time, and during that time the rest of the government would play out their roles: criticizing and supporting, using what was happening to gather support for their own agendas, feeding their own projects, advancing their own goals. But Syria presented a unique opportunity for the Old Guard--an opportunity to push back against the beast, to use their best and only remaining weapon to cut away at the thing that was destroying their party.
The President was confident of moving forward. He had the precedent for it, of course, and while he expected very little support from anyone he knew there wasn't much anyone could do about it on legal grounds. The fact that Britain had unexpectedly veered off course was unsettling, but it didn't change his plans overmuch... until he got a phone call.
Even in those divisive times there were still phone calls. There were still people who kept in touch as a matter of courtesy--as a recognition that, at some point in time, it would be necessary to actually get things done. The people who made those calls were not popular with either party, but they were kept around because they were useful. And one of those people made such a call:
"Mr. President, maybe you should put the vote before Congress. It'll make everything messy, but if we pull this off it's going to solve a few problems."
The President listened. The President considered. The President agreed.
What problems? Well, the debt, for one. The ceiling needed to be raised--again--and it needed to be raised soon. October, everyone was told. October, or the government would be shut down... and the beast wanted the government to be shut down. The beast itself, for another--it was proving far more damaging than useful of late.
But by putting Congress in the mix, by giving them, at least in part, ownership of this war, it allowed the Old Guard to build an ideology--a classic old-guard ideology--that would protect them from this beast even as they did things to enrage it. If Congress supported this military action, it would have to be paid for. The Old Guard could cooperate with members of the Other Side to ensure this happened, while attacking this Beast for lacking the patriotism to support the troops, for being unwilling to fight evil, for not having the resolve to do what was necessary to advance American Exceptionalism.
The timing was perfect! The vote would come in September. The military action would be expensive. The debt ceiling needed to be raised in October, and the beast was already campaigning against it. Give the president authority to wage war for 60 days, with a possible 30 day extension, and then raising the debt ceiling is no longer an argument about health care and government excess: it was an argument about Paying The Troops and Winning a War. You don't shut down the government while you're Winning a War.
The Old Guard had their weapon, and they would use it. The beast, on the other hand, found itself saying the same words as the very groups it had spent so much time and energy attacking, even villifying, during the Iraq War. The Old Guard was certain it had found the beast's exposed underbelly, and it was determined to strike a killing blow...