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US congressman Scott Rigell talks to the media before the
briefing: afterwards, he said he was troubled by the likelihood that the the
Assad government would still be in place after a strike./Guardian Photograph: Joshua
Roberts/Reuters
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Uma semana para a difícil tarefa de convencer o Congresso.
A decisão de Barack Obama de consultar o Congresso
sobre uma possível intervenção militar na Síria foi recebida com agrado por
democratas e republicanos, mas o apoio à proposta do Presidente está longe de
ser um dado adquirido.
"A votação pode muito bem ser derrotada no Congresso. Não é algo que o
Presidente possa dar como garantido", disse à Bloomberg News o analista Ron
Bonjean, antigo conselheiro do Partido Republicano na Câmara dos
Representantes.À incerteza sobre a votação soma-se o constante adiamento de uma decisão - se não houver nenhuma alteração nos próximos dias, a votação do Senado e da Câmara dos Representantes só será conhecida a partir do dia 9 de Setembro. E é este constante adiamento que leva alguns analistas a afirmarem que o "ataque limitado no alcance e na duração", anunciado por Barack Obama no sábado, está agora um pouco mais longe de ser uma certeza.
"Uma acção militar contra a Síria, que parecia ser uma "certeza" na sexta-feira, deixou de estar assegurada. E, mesmo que venham a ser realizados ataques aéreos, o adiamento da operação - apesar da opinião contrária de Obama - faz com que venham a ser provavelmente menos eficazes", defende David Rothkopf, presidente executivo e colunista da revista Foreign Policy.
Das duas câmaras do Congresso, a mais difícil de conquistar parece ser a Câmara dos Representantes, onde o Partido Democrata é "dominado por liberais ainda marcados pela guerra no Iraque, em 2003, baseada em informações erradas dos serviços secretos sobre as armas químicas que Saddam Hussein afinal não tinha", escreve o Washington Post.
"A sombra do Iraque é a maior influência para a maioria dos membros" do Congresso, admitiu o democrata Gerald Connolly, eleito para a Câmara dos Representantes pelo Partido Democrata, citado pelo mesmo diário de Washington.
A actual composição do Senado parece ser um pouco mais favorável à estratégia de Obama, que já recebeu o apoio de alguns senadores influentes, como o republicano John Isakson ou os democratas Robert Menendez e Bill Nelson.
Mas também aqui o Presidente norte-americano tem de enfrentar a oposição declarada de veteranos do Partido Republicano como John McCain e Lindsey Graham, que vão votar contra porque defendem um ataque em larga escala contra o regime sírio. "Qualquer acção menos ambiciosa do que isto seria uma resposta desadequada aos crimes contra a humanidade que Assad e as suas forças estão a cometer", escreveram McCain e Graham num comunicado conjunto.
Até o republicano Pete King - conhecido apoiante do Patriot Act e opositor do encerramento da prisão de Guantánamo - admite que o Congresso dificilmente aprovará a intervenção militar na Síria. Mas se isso acontecer, defende, a culpa é de Obama, por ter "abdicado da sua responsabilidade enquanto comandante supremo e minado a autoridade de futuros Presidentes", ao pedir para ouvir a opinião dos legisladores. "Um Presidente não precisa de 535 membros do Congresso para fazer cumprir a sua própria linha vermelha", defendeu.
Votação não vinculativa
A questão agora é saber que peso terá a votação do Congresso na decisão de Obama, depois de tanto o Presidente como o secretário de Estado, John Kerry, terem afirmado que a Casa Branca pode agir sem a autorização que pretende obter.
Para David Rothkopf, da Foreign Policy, seria "muito difícil" para o Presidente lançar um ataque depois de um "não" do Congresso. Mas uma derrota na votação pode também servir como uma espécie de "cobertura", caso decida voltar atrás na decisão de lançar um ataque contra a Síria, defende Ross Baker, professor na Universidade Rutgers, citado pela Bloomberg. Se for esse o caso, Baker antecipa a argumentação de Barack Obama: "Eles pediram [para serem ouvidos], eu ouvi-os e eles rejeitaram. Não quero desafiar a vontade do Congresso."
US politicians sceptical as Obama administration puts case
for Syria strike
Members of Congress attend classified presentation of
evidence after John Kerry mounts defence of plan for military action vote
Spencer Ackerman in Washington
theguardian.com, Monday 2 September 2013 / http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/01/us-members-congress-syria-briefing
The Obama administration has begun the tough task of
persuading sceptical members of Congress that they should authorise military
action against Syria, as secretary of state John Kerry claimed the US had
evidence that sarin gas was used in an attack outside Damascus last month that
killed 1,400 people.
A classified briefing was held on Capitol Hill on Sunday a
few hours after Kerry made the rounds of all five Sunday talk shows in the US,
mounting a strong defence of President Obama's unexpected plan to allow
Congress a vote on military action against the Syrian government.
Presented with the awkward scenario that Congress would not
back Obama, Kerry stressed that the president had the power to act anyway. But
Kerry said he was confident of a yes vote. "We don't contemplate that the
Congress is going to vote no," Kerry told CNN.
As members of Congress emerged from the briefing, it was
clear that the Obama administration could not be sure of the outcome of the
president's high-risk strategy. In particular, Obama could not count on his own
party to deliver the votes. "I don't know if every member of Congress is
there yet," said Representative Janice Hahn, a California Democrat who
said she would vote no on authorising a military strike. "The room was
sceptical," said Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat.
The briefing took place after Kerry conducted a back-to-back
round of television interviews to press home the case for military strikes.
Kerry, one of the leading advocates of a military assault on the regime of the
Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, outlined new evidence he said the
administration had obtained about the chemical attacks outside Damascus in
August. He said blood and hair samples from first responders who helped victims
of the attacks had tested positive for indicators of the nerve agent sarin.
Kerry said the evidence had come through a "secure
chain of custody", but not from United Nations weapons inspectors. He did
not give any further details of the source for the samples, nor where or when
they had been tested. The new evidence bolstered the case for action, Kerry
said. "Each day that goes by this case is even stronger," he told
CNN.
On Sunday, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, asked
chemical weapons inspectors to speed up their investigation because of the
"horrendous magnitude" of the attack in Syria.
Ban spoke by phone with the head of the team, Ake Sellström,
the Swedish scientist who returned from Syria to The Hague on Saturday. The UN
spokesman Martin Nesirky, briefing reporters at UN headquarters in New York,
said Ban had asked for the process of analysing samples taken from the sites of
the 21 August attack to be conducted as quickly as possible in keeping with the
requirements of scientific stringency.
"The whole process will be done strictly adhering to
the highest established standards of verification recognised by the
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons," Nesirky said.
The samples are scheduled to be sent to laboratories in
Finland and Sweden on Monday. On Friday, the UN estimated the process would
take about two weeks but the findings now seem to likely to be delivered before
that.
At an emergency meeting in Cairo, the Arab League called on
the United Nations and the international community to take
"deterrent" measures under international law to stop the Syrian
regime's crimes, but could not agree on whether to back US military action. In
their closing statement, Arab foreign ministers held the Assad regime
responsible for the "heinous" chemical attack, saying the perpetrators
should be tried before an international court "like other war
criminals".
In Syria, Assad poured scorn on Obama, saying in comments
carried by state media that Damascus was "capable of confronting any
external aggression."
Opposition figures reacted with exasperation to what they
perceive as Obama's delay in striking against Assad. While the Obama
administration insists that the exclusive purpose of any such military attack
would be to punish the chemical weapons attack and deter future use, the
fractious and diverse opposition hopes the anticipated US strike will finally
tip the military balance in their favour, something they have not managed
decisively in a two-and-a-half year civil war that has killed nearly 100,000
people.
Samir Nishar of the opposition Syrian National Coalition
called Obama a "weak president", according to CNN.
Kerry reacted to the Syrian opposition's evident
disappointment by suggesting that Obama will not limit US involvement in the
foreign civil war to cruise missile strikes tethered to chemical weapons. The
administration "may even be able to provide greater support to the
opposition", Kerry said. Obama authorised the provision of weapons to
Syrian rebels after determining earlier this year that Assad had carried out a
smaller-scale chemical attack.
Deeper involvement in the Syrian civil war has prompted
reluctance within the US military to bless even a one-off military strike.
General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and a multi-tour
veteran of Iraq, has voiced such fears for more than two years.
But Congressional hawks say Obama has not gone far enough.
Senator John McCain, one of the most interventionist Republicans, said the
administration needed to have a more decisive plan to topple the Assad regime.
He warned against the possibility of Congress defying the president. "The
consequences of a Congress of the United States over-riding a decision of the
president of the United States on this magnitude are really very serious,"
he told Face the Nation on CBS.
McCain and his fellow Republican senator Lindsey Graham said
earlier this weekend that they wanted any military campaign to "achieve
the president's stated goal of Assad's removal from power, and bring an end to
this conflict". Kerry, responding to McCain and Graham, said he was
confident the two senators would become convinced that "there will be
additional pressure" on Assad.
"A strategy is in place in order to help the opposition
and change the dynamics of what is happening in Syria," Kerry told ABC
News, while simultaneously denying the US would get sucked into the mire of the
civil war.
Before Sunday's classified briefing, some leading
legislators predicted that Obama would win a vote of the kind that his UK
counterpart, Prime Minister David Cameron, unexpectedly lost last week.
"At the end of the day, Congress will rise to the occasion,"
Representative Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House intelligence committee,
told CNN. "This is a national security issue."
Others were less sure. Senator Rand Paul, a libertarian
Republican, put the chances of an authorisation vote in the House of
Representatives at 50-50. "I think the Senate will rubber stamp what he
wants but the House will be a much closer vote," he told NBC.
Legislators estimated that between 100 and 150 members of
Congress attended Sunday's classified briefing in the basement of the US
Capitol, representing approximately a fifth of the Senate and House. Deputy
national security adviser Antony Blinken was scheduled to be joined in the
basement auditorium by four colleagues from the state department, the office of
the Director of National Intelligence, the military's joint staff and the
Pentagon's policy directorate.
Scott Rigell, a Virginia Republican, praised Obama for going
to Congress, even as Rigell said he would not vote for the resolution.
"What I wrestle with, and of course I am continuing to wrestle with this,
is how do we define success and our objective, and a full understanding and
consideration of the ramifications," Rigell said.
He said he was troubled by the likelihood that "the
Assad regime is still there" after a strike.
Sander Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said he would support a
strike, declaring himself persuaded that the Assad regime had crossed "a
red line that began to be drawn a hundred years ago".
Asked how US involvement in Syria ends – with the strikes
being a one-off affair or a prelude to deeper US military engagement – Levin
said, "I don't think anybody's quite sure, but I think we know where we
need to start."
Representative Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, said he
left the briefing with questions about US strategy toward Syria, but also with
questions about whether Assad would be strengthened if Congress voted against a
strike, as the British parliament did last week.
Cummings said the draft authorisation for a military strike
that Obama sent to Congress was "very, very broad," giving him pause.
"I want to know exactly what the game plan is after this," Cummings
said. "How will this strike lead, as the resolution says, to a diplomatic
resolution of this issue?"
He left the briefing unsure if Obama would abide by the
final vote on the Syria authorisation, which could come as early as next week,
when Congress returns from summer recess. "I don't know," Cummings
said. "I'm pretty sure they will, but I don't know. That's a good
question."
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