When You Start to Vote on Syria, Vote on Syria

President Obama's dumping of the Syria buck on to Congress' desks has posed a dilemma for me considering the problems of the president's approach. But why shouldn't it be an opportunity to do this right? Congress should amend the Obama Syria resolution and make the defeat of Assad our objective.

Problems include dangers of Congress on the one hand voting no and either the president provoking what could be a constitutional crisis if he then goes ahead with bombing, or honors the vote and our enemies rejoice and our friends despair of our weakness and ineptitude; or on the other hand Congress votes yes on that toothless proposed resolution and Congress provides cover for an ineffective bombing run whose purpose is not victory but getting Assad to negotiate his survival with the rebels (and rescuing the president's reputation, the White House may wrongly believe).

Mind you, as I've noted before, I'm not completely against the idea of Assad's survival if other foreign policy objectives are higher than his overthrow. If loose chemical weapons or the prospect of jihadi victory or the likelihood of another 100,000 dead are that bad (I'm not privy to a lot, obviously), I can swallow my convictions and let Assad survive as a leader of a rump Alawite state within a confederation set up.

And as long as we then work to get rid of Assad as head of the sub-state. So I really am speaking about a two-step overthrow with a pause to make sure bad things don't happen in a one-step regime change.

But why shouldn't Congress see the president's request as an opportunity to fix things? Okay, stop laughing. I know. It's Congress. But they are all we've got right now.

President Obama has drafted a resolution he wants Congress to pass. It promises we won't really harm Assad at all in whatever small thing we do. Naturally, everyone can hate this whether you oppose all use of force or whether you support only effective use of force.

Congress has no obligation to pass that resolution.

Why can't Congress substitute that resolution with another piece of legislation declaring regime change to be our official policy for Syria as the only way to resolve the crisis; and authorizing the president to use air, Marine, and naval power with limited Army special forces, air defense, and chemical warfare response units in support in order to assist non-jihadi rebels?

The resolution could state that it is the policy of the United States to support non-jihadi rebels in overthrowing Assad and that we will provide arms (excluding air defense missiles, I'd say), training, and intelligence to assist these rebels in winning.

Then President Obama can decide whether to veto it or not. Then he gets to bear the burden of supporting his rash red line words and failure to gather a coalition to help him back his words rather than trying a clever trick to get Congress to take responsibility for failure to stop Assad from using chemical weapons.

How often does Congress get the chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat? Take Damascus (figuratively)!