vote is the ongoing brawl inside the republican coalition over that party s foreign policy direction. and when watching the news today, each new position for or against the resolution from both democrats and republicans often came as a genuine surprise. citizens looking to their political leaders for direction are likely to find themselves profoundly contorted. joining me now is tommy vietor, former national security spokesman in the obama administration, co-founder of fenway strategies. he was back in the white house today to help the president win support for intervention in syria. ben dominic, at think tank the heartland institute. he co-founded red state a conservative blog. eli lake, senior national security reporter from newsweek and the daily beast. explain this to me. i found the moment in the hearing today that was most interesting was several senators saying, if you think you have the authority to do this without coming to congress, why are you coming to congress? and i
apparently senator mitch mcconnell s hoping no one has noticed his dismal record on women s rights because suddenly he s totally for them. despite years of being otherwise. and we ll debate whether we should go to war with syria. all that is ahead. first i want to share the three awesomest things on the internet today. beginning with what may be the trick basketball shot of the summer. the group how ridiculous is an australian trick shot basketball team with a social conscience. according to the group s website, their goal is to inspire people to live selflessly, give generously and join us in the fight against child poverty.
today he would back the president on a congressional vote to authorize a strike against syria. so did congressman elliot engel, top democrat on the house foreign affairs committee who said if we didn t respond in kind, it would send a message to every despot, every thug you could commit war crimes and nothing is going happen. nancy pelosi made a similar pro-interventionist argument, herself. from the humanitarian standpoint cannot be ignored or else we cannot say never again. secondly, from a national security standpoint, we have to send a very clear message to those who have weapons of mass destruction, of any variety, that should forget about using them.
that he shouldn t do it in violation of the constitution, and secondly, i would counsel him that he would have to have better answers than what this administration has as far as making justifications. and more importantly, to me, where we re going with this, what does success look like? what does day two, three and four look like? how are you going to deal with the fallout assuming russia reacts adversely, which we know they will to some degree or another, and depending how they would react if hezbollah reacted adversely, which we know they will. they re already fighting on behalf of assad in syria. can you imagine a future situation in which some scale of chemical weapons attack from the assad regime, if we stipulate for the moment that they were responsible, as the evidence suggests, can you imagine a scale of chemical attack over which point you would feel the u.s. is actually compelled to
reacts adversely, which we know they will to some degree or another, and depending how they would react if hezbollah reacted adversely, which we know they will. they re already fighting on behalf of assad in syria. can you imagine a future situation in which some scale of chemical weapons attack from the assad regime, if we stipulate for the moment that they were responsible, as the evidence suggests, can you imagine a scale of chemical attack over which point you would feel the u.s. is actually compelled to act? absolutely. i think if they use chemical against any american, against any american interest, against any american ally. let me be clear, they are a neighbor to israel. we have treaties with israel. they require the defense. i would be all in. as far as within the country, everybody knows that this isn t the first time that assad has used gas against his own people. indeed, saddam hussein used it