Rep. Daines missed chance to be a statesman

President Obama’s handling of Syria has been bad; Rep. Daines’ is worse.

On Aug. 31, Rep. Daines released a statement that said, in part, “I am glad [that the president requested] Congressional approval before any potential military action in Syria. I will closely scrutinize intelligence suggesting that the Syrian regime has unleashed weapons of mass destruction against innocent civilians.”  

A few hours later Rep. Daines stated, “I’m hearing from Montanans that these are conflicts that date back thousands of years and we don’t want to put men and women in harm’s way and spending dollars we don’t have right now to fight a conflict I don’t see we’re going to be able to win.”

Rather than returning to Congress and being a statesman by listening to the highly confidential intelligence reports from the CIA, DoD, NSA, UN, etc., before voting, Rep. Daines played the politician.  With all due respect to the Montanans Rep. Daines is hearing from, Rep. Daines owes all Americans and the world the responsibility of being a statesman.  

The purpose of President Obama’s seeking congressional approval was premised on the belief that Rep. Daines and all of Congress would listen to the intelligence, debate the merits and THEN vote.  Rep. Daines prejudged highly confidential and classified intelligence that he hadn’t even received. What is the purpose of heading back to Congress? He could mail in his vote of defeatism from Montana.

It is ironic that America went to war in Iraq slightly over a decade ago under a Republican president and the full support of Republicans and many Democrats, under the false premise that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Today, the world knows that Syria has the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the region and that Bashar al-Assad has used such weapons against his people.  

Today’s Republicans see no conflict in their flip-flopping on this issue of national security. Rep. Daines has already gone on record of stating he won’t support a U.S. military attack on Syrian soil.  Regretfully, Rep. Daines is behaving like President Obama by boxing himself in regarding future global issues such as Iran’s efforts at securing nuclear weapons.  

Ironically, Rep. Daines recently returned from Israel, a nation that shares a boundary with Syria. Freshman Congressman Daines’ unsophisticated approach to foreign matters could be taken as the abandonment of Israel, emboldening Iran, and informing all the brave American military members who served in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last decade (and are still serving in Afghanistan) their service was for naught.  

President Obama’s mishandling of Syria is compounded by congressional members who don’t want to be bothered with intelligence reports before making up their minds. Rep. Daines and all members of Congress could benefit from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s recent statement when he cautioned his cabinet, “I ask that you not act without consideration and irresponsibility toward our ally [the U.S.] in order to capture a moment of glory.”

The intelligence reports forthcoming will discuss the impact that America’s action or lack thereof, will have on Israel, Iran, the whole Middle East region, Russia, China, North Korea, and the world.  Rather than being a statesman and return to our Capitol and hear the reports and arguments, politician Daines immediately makes statements to score partisan points on his current stops throughout Montana. His statements only serve to divide and weaken us. One can’t imagine Sens. Baucus, Burns, Tester and Mansfield prejudging such matters dealing with national security to gain political points.  

Rep. Daines and President Obama are playing political football with America’s national security. The president has fumbled the ball in a crucial area of the world. Rather than recovering the fumble, Rep. Daines wants to get off the gridiron as fast as possible with no concern for the final score.

Muri, of Whitefish, is a former JAG officer in the U.S. Navy.