Byron York provides 5 reasons why Republican lawmakers may vote against authorizing military force against Syria. Nowhere on his list is any healthy respect for public opinion. Since politicians do deem their reelection prospects a rather important consideration, this is a glaring failure of analysis. If you are a member of Congress, you not only need to look at the current polls, but you have to make an effort to predict how a ‘yes’ vote will look in retrospect.
One idea is that by severely limiting what is authorized, Congress can significantly diminish the risk of blowback or mission creep. Another consideration that could work along with this is that the administration is not compelled to use the authority they are given but might be able to use the authority as leverage to force some creative compromise on the Russians, the Iranians, and the Assad regime. For example, would the regime agree to a voluntary disarming of their chemical weapons stockpile in return for not getting bombed? Could the Russians facilitate that?
But this would require skeptical members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to place a high degree of trust in the administration. And trust is in short supply.
