President Obama has had a month without Congress looking over his shoulder to figure out a strategy for handling Russian aggression in Ukraine and Islamic State militants’ advance in Iraq.
No longer.
With lawmakers returning to Capitol Hill on Monday, the president will find himself under pressure — and possibly facing votes in Congress — to set a strategy that could include military measures well beyond what he’s inclined to do on his own.
Already, the House GOP has several hearings lined up to pressure Mr. Obama, particularly taking aim at his admission in late August that he has no strategy to handle the threat from the Islamic State, known by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL.
“The administration is sending mixed messages now. ISIS is a serious threat to U.S. national security,” said Rep. Edward R. Royce, California Republican and chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, who also said they will hear directly from Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Tuesday.
Several lawmakers have already put concrete proposals on the table.
Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat, is drafting legislation authorizing U.S. military strikes on the Islamic State in Syria, where it has a foothold, while Rep. Frank R. Wolf, Virginia Republican, has written a broader resolution authorizing strikes against the Islamic State or al Qaeda wherever they are found.
Mr. Wolf, in an interview, said the White House is about to feel pressure from all of the proposals on Capitol Hill.
“The fact that Congress will be talking about this — [members] certainly heard about it when they were home — I think the administration will have to respond one way or another,” he said.
Republican congressional leaders have said they would prefer Mr. Obama lay out a strategy and then submit it to Congress. Mr. Wolf said that would be the best route. But he also said Mr. Obama should have done that months ago.
“I think it would be preferable for the president to go forward in consultation with the Congress,” he said. “But on the other hand, if the president doesn’t, does that mean the Congress doesn’t?”
Some of the pressure on Mr. Obama will come from lawmakers with first-hand knowledge. Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, went to both Irbil, Iraq, and Kiev, Ukraine, during Congress’s recess, and said he’s concluded the Kurdish peshmerga forces deserve to be given American arms.
A number of congressional Democrats have been critical of Mr. Obama’s approach, urging him to take a firmer stand in targeting the Islamic State.
As the summer waned, Mr. Obama had already begun to shift positions.
Earlier this year he said Iraq would have to deal with terrorism threats without U.S. military help. He then said the U.S. military could be used to protect American personnel in Iraq and ordered a campaign of airstrikes, saying the goal was to make the terrorists “manageable.”
By Sunday that campaign had lasted several weeks, and Mr. Obama was vowing to “hunt them down” and “dismantle them.”
The pace of American strikes on Islamic State targets had also picked up, with 12 more over the weekend, bringing the total to 143 since the campaign began.
For their part, lawmakers are also beginning to focus on dangers stemming from Americans who become radicalized and travel to train and fight with militant Islamists. Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, has proposed passing a law stripping U.S. citizenship from Americans who go to fight with terrorists.
Mr. Wolf introduced another bill in March that would require the president to designate countries “of concern,” including Syria, where Americans may be traveling to join with terrorist groups. Any American citizen wishing to travel to those countries would be required to get a permit.
Mr. Wolf said that could help the U.S. expose and possibly prevent more Americans joining the dozens estimated to have joined the fight in Syria already.
Still to be seen, however, is whether Congress itself can unify around any policies.
Several years ago, when Mr. Obama had committed the U.S. to strikes in Libya, Congress debated whether or not to authorize it, and lawmakers broke into three camps: one that supported the president, one that rebuked him for going without authorization but allowed him to continue and one that wanted to halt his operations altogether. None of them achieved a majority vote, leaving Mr. Obama with a free hand.
Mr. Wolf said it should be easier to find unity this time.
“I think you can get a consensus,” Mr. Wolf said. “If the Congress isn’t going to participate, then I think it shirks its responsibility.”
Not all lawmakers believe Mr. Obama needs to come to Congress in the first place.
Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican, said Mr. Obama would benefit from congressional input, but he shouldn’t waste time doing so if he wants to take immediate action.
“If that’s going to delay what he wants to do, he should go ahead and take action without waiting for Congress,” Mr. King said on ABC’s “This Week” program. “This is too important to get bogged down in congressional debate if he doesn’t believe he has the support.”
But Mr. Cruz said the president has to come to Congress to authorize strikes in Syria, while stressing that it is urgent to take action as soon as possible.
“It should absolutely take congressional approval,” he said.
Mr. Obama said on “Meet the Press” he plans to meet with congressional leaders Tuesday to brief them on the threat, though he did not go so far as to say he wanted lawmakers to vote to authorize military action.
“I’m confident that I’ve got the authorization I need to protect the American people,” Mr. Obama said. “But I do think it’s important for Congress to understand what the plan is — to buy in, to debate it.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Jacqueline Klimas can be reached at jklimas@washingtontimes.com.
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