Obama: Congress Needs to Authorize Syria War Despite Disarmament Plan

Kerry: Offer Wasn't a Real Proposal

President Obama says that he wants Congress to continue the process to authorize his planned war on Syria today, in spite of a disarmament plan that emerged earlier today which could lead to the full dismantling of Syria’s chemical arsenal.

Obama said he was “open” to the idea of putting the planned attack temporarily on hold if Assad transfers all chemical weapons, an idea proposed by Secretary of State John Kerry earlier today and accepted by both Russia and Syria.

Kerry has since informed Russia that the offer was not a sincere proposal, and multiple officials have said that there is no reason for the proposal’s acceptance to get in the way of Congress authorizing the war.

Yet clearly there is. The putative excuse for this attack was to scare the Assad government into not using chemical weapons in the future, and they obviously can’t if they don’t have such weapons.

Instead of taking a diplomatic victory, the administration seems to just want this plan to go away so they can get back to the important work of lying America into war.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.