this is not an open ended process. to ensure that there is specific language about no boots on the ground for american troops. at the same time to strike a balance that perms the president to conduct the very type of military action that stops the use of chemical weapons and accepteds a global message as well that the use of weapons is not permitted under international law and there is a serious consequence that sends a message to the ayatollah in iran and do not march towards the nuclear weapons. we mean what we say. that sends the leaders a clear message. do not think about using your weapons on the korean peninsula. that is part of what s going and it can be drafted in a way that assuages the concerns of senator leahy, but permits the president to conduct the action in a way that would be successful and limited, but will be powerful
party? joining me now is the congressman from maryland. thank you very much. senate foreign relations committee staffer and we are on all the committees and your father was a diplomat. you grew up in this world. you had doubts and you are not signing on to an open ended commitment by the president. . i do have doubts and concerns. i do believe it is established that assad forces used chemical weapons. you have no doubt what happened? no doubt. beyond a reasonable doubt that that happened. second i believe that the united states and the international community have an obligation to enforce a 90-year-old regime against the use of chemical weapons. if nothing is done, the chances of assad and others doing it again against u.s. forces is high. you are not sure that the air strikes will make anything
accountability. they must uphold the crack down on the use of chemical weapons at the international norm that existed for about a century. andr andrea? is. thanks to peter alexander. as we have seen over the last couple of days, momentum growing for congressional action. this was a black and whited decision by the president. are there concerns about the uncertain nature? there has been a lot of questioning about how the administration will go about this. the republican on foreign relations along with the chairman democrat robbery effort menendez. the administration has been clunky, to use his words. urging the witnesses to be very direct and very forth coming about the case that needs to be made. they believe there was in fact a need to take action. it is hard to get the support because of how the public feels
enough in both getting the assad regime in sending the global message. the president promised in june and has not received the weapons. i think part of it, the president would say that they have been training the vetted moderate opposition to have the capacity to use the weapons that senator mccain and graham and others are advocating for. as a matter of fact the committee on foreign relations that i chair several months ago voted 15-3 to be able to do exactly that and both train and arm the elements of the syrian opposition that we believe would chair largely the values we want to see in syria. i think we are moving in that direction. in this particular case, the real question is are we going to send a message to the world that the use of chemical weapons in violation of international law
seems to me so long as assad does not resume the use of chemical weapons, we shouldn t be having continued military strikes, right. in other words, if our objective is to prevent the repeated use of chemical weapons, after we ve sent a message, if assad gets the message and doesn t use chemical weapons again, there should be no ongoing authority to continue to use military force by the united states because our objective, that limited objective, will have been accomplished. what do you think of the way the administration rolled this out with john kerry coming out from a national security meeting at 1:00 on friday, forcefully explaining the intelligence, calling for action, saying that you can t let this go unanswered, that that s an invitation for more attacks such as this. and then the president really changing his mind, as we were told. changing his mind friday night, calling his team in on friday night and saturday and announcing saturday that he wants to go to congress.