there are severe outcomes that would engulf us. while i think it s great we can share and let s not forget the nuance. each side has pros and cons. making the most informed decision is predicating upon listening to the arguments. it shouldn t be a scarlet letter, but rather a sign of thoughtful decision making. by arguing the merits of a response, it proves we are a country that prides freedom of speech and the deliberation of a duly elected representative. at the ends it is those values that are more transform tiff than any military could ever be. that s it for the cycle. martin, it s all users. thank you to your family for yourself. good afternoon. it s thursday, september 5th, and as congress considers how to respond to syria, the president goes in search of support from international allies at the g-20 summit. president obama in
we bring in business insider josh barro. josh, is this sequence of events at all important or is this just politics as usual in washington? i think the important part of the sequence is that the president got out in front of this issue with the red line comment first effectively committing himself to do something if there was a chemical attack in syria and then during the week with john kerry s statement, essentially signaling this is so bad we have to go to war, and then a key part of the argument for why congress should approve the military action is, well, the president and the secretary of state have already committed us. if we don t follow through, then our credibility will be undermined. effectively we re in the situation where congress nominally has the power to approve and i think may well decline to give that approval, but they re being told that bus the president sort of spoke out of turn ahead of them, their option set is limited. it s one of the key arguments for why they
to bring this war to a halt. i think that s a really interesting and important point that you just made, that we don t want assad to fall write now. perhaps that answers some of the questions that i want to get into, that we have we re seeing unenthusiastic support or lack of support from the arab world for a strike no matter how despite how much effort we give to egypt. they re not with us. tunisia s not with us. algeria s not with us. why is it that the arab world is not supporting this strike when the arab league expelled syria several years ago? well, toure, like anything else in the arab league, it s not really an arab league. there s a group of arab countries that come together and then spend most of their time arguing among themselves. the qatar ris and em rat at thises and saudis who are part of the sunni religious block of the arab league want to see the strike and probably have already said that they re going to pay the check for it if, indeed, it ever occurs. the egy
traffic cops, women in leadership, trying to feed their families, doing the best in very, very dire conditions. but i have to say as someone who s watched this war for 2 1/2 years, it s really sinister the way it works. it s sad the assad regime, every time there s a part of the country that falls, you can say rebel hands, some say liberated territory, the assad regime makes it practically unlivable. they bombard it with scud missiles. it s hard for people to stand up any kind of normal life. that s a strategic move on the assad government part. it s a scorched earth policy. that makes the residents in those areas kind of yearn for any kind of stability. there s a pattern of behavior. the more you know syria and the closer you watch the regime, the more you understand the sequence of events from the u.s. call for assad to leave through the use of chemical weapons to where we stand. it s not that strange for syrians to consider how this got so bad.
changed and it was possible to pass 26789 t.a.r.p. i have great difficulty imagining that the president would make this decision he made and then just disregard the wilf congress and attack anyway. interesting. i think we re out of time. i did want to add i don t think the impeachment piece is significant. if there s an unreasonable threat out there that may exist in the republican party, the article 2 authority for the president to order limited strikes is very clear. whether or not congress acts, i think he has that. josh, rational thought and thinking. we love having you on. thanks, abby. 45% of americans told us they don t know enough about syria to decide on military intervention. we ll help you make your mind up next. after all, it s the nbc way. [announcer] there s no hiding the goodness of the latest from