the case for war here to suggest that only the hawks have international law on their side? well, ari, i just refused to use the word war here. this is not war. we can parcel this out any which way and i ll throw something else out at you. this administration and almost anybody involved who knows the syrian conflict would tell you the dirty little secret is we don t want assad to fall right now. my biggest concern with this potential attack is not that it s going to lead to a deeper war, but no matter how we target this, what happens if we destroy the command and control operations that have some control over the huge cache of chemical weapons that exist? i m more concerned about that and much less concerned about whether there s going to be boots on the ground or this is iraq or afghanistan. in the end, the key here is to send assad a signal that is unequivocal, don t use chemical weapons anymore and get a diplomatic initiative underway that s going to, in effect, try
in harm s way. i think it s more complicated than that. what if we find ourselves torn, where does that person belong? furthermore, by not having a strong position, does that just make us seem weak? that s exactly where i find myself. i m well aware that admitting my internal dilemma, it puts me in a vulnerable place, but i have a feeling many other family that sail sense of doubt. mac eye lawmakers on the hill. i m torn with my desire to my initial reaction is against taking action in syria. like the majority of americans, it seems like the last thing our country needs is yet another conflict abroad. after more than a decade of combat that cost is a trillion and a half dollars, left gold star mothers walking the treats, and 100,000 refugees. there isn t much appetite to take on syria and its allies,
explode. we re talking 2 million refugees so far. february last year, 16,000 refugees. that was when russia and china vetoed the u.n. resolution. august 20th president obama issues the famous red line. by the end of the month 145,000 refugees. by april u.s. intel had syria using chemical weapons twice. refugees had jumped to more than a million. in june the cia training the rebels, refugeed jumped to 1.5 million. this week as they move ahead and the proposed strikes, you have 1.8 million refugees according to the u.n. doesn t this time line actually make it pretty hard for the president to prove that now is the time to help these syrian people? well, i think the time line supports his position that the situation in syria has continued to deteriorate and the humanitarian crisis now is obviously much more severe than it was a year ago. this is the point that the white house has been hammering. this has been the key feature of john kerry s statements is this
all of us in the congress and i m taking it with all the seriousness that it deserves. congressman, the majority of americans are still skeptical. they are not convinced. it s interesting, i looked at a poll that took place in december. 63% of americans were actually supportive of u.s. action if syria used chemical weapons. at that point it was a hypothetical question. a stark contrast to what we re seeing today. 60% opposing a missile strike. many of these people are waiting to hear from the president. they want the president to lay out his case. when do you expect to hear from the president and what could he say to change the perception? i support the president. i trust the president. i think it s different than the bush/cheney crowd and the shenanigans we saw that led us into the war in iraq. the problem is he s saddled with those credibility issues perhaps unfairly as a result of what was done in the past and what led us into the conflict in iraq. i do think that for that reaso
strike further in the future? i have great difficulty imagining the president to react to a negative vote in congress and going ahead and attacking anyway. i think for one thing it would seriously open him up to an impeachment threat. i also think the white house s reservation of that power is more about future military actions. they don t want to set a precedent that any time the president wants to make a strike against anybody he has to go to congress, but i do think it really did set a precedent specifically for this syria situation. now if there are developments in syria that strengthen the argument for attacking, i think it s likely that the white house will again raise the possibility of doing that. i suspect outside a situation where there s a true immediate threat to the united states where the president can say, look, there was literally no time for me to go back to congress, i think that requires him to go back and say, here, with this new better information, now approve th