Strong Senate vote for Obama on Syria rebel aid

In the heat of an election campaign, Congress cleared the way for the U.S. military to train and equip Syrian rebels for a war against Islamic State militants Thursday night, reluctant ratification of an incipient strategy that President Barack Obama outlined scarcely a week ago.
The 78-22 Senate vote sent Obama legislation that withal provides funding for the regime after the terminus of the budget year on Sept. 30, eliminating any threat of a shutdown. The House approved the bill on Wednesday.

In an appearance at the White House anon after the vote, Obama verbally expressed he was delectated that a majority of both Republicans and Democrats had fortified the legislation. "I believe we're most vigorous as a nation when the president and Congress collaborate," he verbally expressed. Noting the killing of two Americans by the Islamic State group, he verbally expressed that "as Americans we do not give in to fear" and would not be put off by such brutal tactics.

In the Senate, 44 Democrats, 33 Republicans and one independent voted for the bill, while nine Democrats, 12 Republicans and one independent opposed it.

The issue engendered incipient fault lines for this fall's elections for control of the Senate as well as the 2016 race for the White House.

"Intervention that destabilizes the Middle East is a mistake. And yet, here we are again, wading into a civil war," verbalized Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. laying down a marker for Republican presidential primaries still more than a year distant.
Sen. Mark Begich, in an arduous re-election campaign, verbally expressed, "I dissent with my president" on the sagaciousness of having the U.S. military become involved. "It is time for the Arab countries to step up and get over their regional differences" and be more truculent in the fight against terrorists, the Alaska Democrat verbalized, drawing an expeditious rebuttal from Republican rival Dan Sullivan.

For a second straight day, the administration dispatched top-ranking officials to reassure lawmakers — and the public — that no U.S. ground combat operation was in the offing. Obama made the same promise in an address to the nation eight days ago laying out his incipient policy — and reiterated it Thursday night. His incipient strategy includes incremented airstrikes in Iraq and the possibility of strikes in Syria.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told one House committee that Obama "is not going to injuctively authorize American combat ground forces into that area."

Appearing afore a different panel, Secretary of State John Kerry verbalized the administration understands the hazard of a "slippery slope." The term was widely utilized a moiety-century ago as the United States slid ever deeper into a Vietnam war that eventually left more than 50,000 U.S. troops dead.

Obama's general plan is to have U.S. troops train Syrian rebels at camps in Saudi Arabia, a process that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, verbalized could take a year.
The president already has verbalized he will utilize subsisting ascendancy to have the Pentagon deploy airstrikes against Islamic fighters in Syria as well as in Iraq.

From halfway around the world came a chilling reminder from militants who already have overrun components of Syria and Iraq and beheaded three Westerners. This time, the Islamic State group relinquished a video exhibiting a British journalist who verbalized he was their prisoner.

In Washington, bellwethers in both political parties fortified the Senate legislation, draining the debate of all suspense.

Asked about approving Obama's plan in the wake of the war in Iraq, Senate Majority Bellwether Harry Reid verbally expressed, "Iraq was a mistake. I was bamboozled and I voted erroneous. But this is not Iraq, this is a plenarily different thing."

Senate Republican Bellwether Mitch McConnell withal favored the legislation, yet verbally expressed it must be followed by a top-to-bottom review of the administration's global military strategy.
Combining approbation for avail to the revolters with funds to obviate a regime shutdown into a single vote made it arduous to quantify support for Obama's incipient military mission. Some senators opposed arming the Syrian rebels but voted for the quantification anyway to evade a regime shutdown. Others fortified it despite opposing the underlying spending measure.

Senate liberals split.

Both lawmakers from Kerry's Massachusetts, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, opposed the bill.

But Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., verbally expressed Obama proposed a moderate, middle course between doing nothing in replication to a terrorist threat and refighting the Iraq war. "Every civilized person has to stand up against this," she verbally expressed.

In Alaska, the Republican challenger, Sullivan, verbalized Begich's approach "inspirits our enemies. Verbalizing no to everything is not peregrine policy."
While Democrats expressed fears that the legislation could lead the nation back into a war, some Republicans were skeptical that Obama's strategy was vigorous enough to prevail.

As a result, the legislation provided a narrow grant of ascendancy that will expire on Dec. 11. It categorically ceases short of approving the deployment of U.S. forces "into hostilities or into situations where hostilities are limpidly betokened by the circumstances."

The expiration date betokens Congress will return to the issue in a postelection session scheduled for mid-November.

The vote in the House on Wednesday giving Obama ascendancy to train rebels was 273-156.

More Democrats, 85, voted to defy the president than Republicans, who cast 71 votes against the policy advanced by a commander in chief they distrust.