this could potentially be a significant breakthrough, but we have to be skeptical, because this is not how we ve seen them operate over the last couple of years. in between secretary kerry s appearing to be offhand remark and president obama treating it publicly as a potential breakthrough, we saw this from the russian foreign minister, sergey lavrov, if the establishment of international control of chemical weapons over in that country would allow avoiding strikes, we will immediately start working with damascus. from the syrian foreign minister, i announce the arab republic of syria welcomes the russian initiative. from british prime minister david cameron, if syria were to put its chemical weapons beyond use under international supervision, clearly that would be a big step forward. i think we have to be careful, though, to make sure this is not a distraction tactic. from dianne feinstein, i would welcome such a move. i believe russia can be most effective in encouraging the
through that, but certainly, his tone, i think, tomorrow will be to stress what we have heard from the white house in this full court press, which is that the use of chemical weapons are a threat to the united states national security. he will likely bring up concerns over what iran might do and, again, he ll probably reiterate that point that you heard him make there in the interview with savannah guthrie, which is that these latest developments came because the united states was threatening a military strike, and that that has been a part of moving the needle. in terms of the extent to which he will discuss these latest developments, i think that all of that is still being sorted through, because these developments are sort of evolving rapidly around all of us, including the folks at the white house. nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker, thank you so much. thank you. joining me now is neera tandem and sam stein, political
it provides a strange adjustment to the political calculus on the hill. this has looked to me like just speaking in totally political terms, headed towards a disastrous result at the white house, because every whip count indicates the support is just not there. it s not popular in the country, it s not popular among congress. latest whip count has 22 against in the senate, 44 undecided, 25 for. in the house, you have 122 against, undecided 169 and only 26 declared for. what do you think is happening on the hill right now and between the white house and the hill about the politics of these upcoming votes with the developments today and with the president speaking tomorrow? well, i think the most important thing is the developments around russia. obviously, we have to look at what our goal was here. our goal is actually to insure that there isn t chemical weapons used in the world. that s the actual, you know, that s what the president s been talking about for weeks. and if we can have
seem to be more serious than what they had heard until today. and one of the things that they point to is the fact that there was an acknowledgement and there has been an acknowledgement now that syria has chemical weapons. this is really the first time that syria has acknowledged that. so, that is a significant development. having said that, chris, there is still a lot of skepticism here at the white house and on capitol hill, in part because syria s chemical weapons are spread out all over the country, and there s a lot of questions about how would the international community actually get in to secure the chemical weapons and confirm that they had reached all of those chemical weapons sites? so, certainly, a striking turn of events today. it sort of seemed to recalibrate this entire process and negotiations. however, while there is some hope that possibly russia and syria could be serious about this, there s also a lot of concern about how realistic this proposal is.
for this reason, congress should proceed with its plan to consider and vote on the authorization for use of force that is now before the senate. today s developments should make members of congress more willing to vote yes. sam, that is the argument the president made in the interviews he did tonight, and it also is precisely the same argument the bush administration made in the run-up to the iraq war, that, basically, the credible threat of force was getting the weapons inspectors back in, and it was only that that allowed any kind of diplomatic, nonviolent solution to be possible. yeah, and you know, i guess the assad regime wasn t watching the domestic political debate, because anyone who was watching it would probably come to the conclusion that they were never going to pass the authorization to begin with. but i don t doubt the idea that the possibility of a u.s. military strike weighed on assad. what happens, what differentiates obama from bush, i guess, in the end, is what do