Obama has decided it is safer to buy Congress than go it alone
By Paul Craig Roberts
While still claiming dictatorial powers to start a war on his own authority, Obama put his unilateral attack on Syria on hold when he received a letter from more than 160 members of the House of Representatives reminding him that to take the country to war without congressional approval is an impeachable offense and when he saw that no country that could serve as cover for a war crime, not even the puppet British government and the NATO puppet states, would support America's announced military aggression against Syria.
Obama got away with attacking Libya without an OK from Congress, because he used Washington's NATO puppets and not US military forces. That ploy let Obama claim that the US was not directly involved.
Now that the lack of cover and the challenge from Congress has caused the would-be tyrant Obama to put on hold his attack on Syria, what can we expect?
If Obama were intelligent, and clearly anyone who would appoint Susan Rice as his national security adviser is not intelligent, he would simply let the attack on Syria fade into the background and die as Congress returns on September 9 to face the insoluble problems of the budget deficit and debt ceiling.
A competent administration would realize that a government that is unable to pay its bills without heavy use of the printing press is in far too much trouble to be worrying about what is going on in Syria. No competent administration would risk a military strike that could result in a Middle East conflagration and a rise in oil prices, thus worsening the economic situation that Washington faces.
But Obama and his collection of incompetents have demonstrated that they have no competence. The regime is also corrupt, and the entire edifice rests on nothing but lies.
Now that the White House realizes that Obama cannot commit a war crime without cover, here is what we can likely expect. The argument will move away from whether or not Assad used chemical weapons and become an argument that Congress must not undermine US prestige and credibility by failing to support President Obama, the latest front man for American wars of aggression.