syria. >> but, having made my decision as commander in chief based on what i am convinced is our national security interests, i'm also mindful that i'm the president of the world's oldest constitutional democracy. i've long believed that our power is rooted not just in our military might but in our example as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. and that's why i've made a second decision. i will seek authorization for the use of force from the american people's representatives in congress. ♪ host: good morning o.

white house staffers were reportedly stunned on friday evening when the president called them and he decided to get congressional approval. now it's up to senate and house lawmakers with hearings and votes expected next week on whether to use force against the syrian government. it is sunday morning, september the 1st, and we'll be focusing much of today's "washington journal" on the president's announcement yesterday and what happens next. our phone lines are open at 202-585-3880. that's our line for democrats. and 202-585-3881 for republicans. we also have a line for those of you affiliated with third parties or who are watching outside the united states. and as always, you can join us on facebook or send us a tweet at cspanwj. let's take a look at some of the headlines beginning with the washingtothe"thelos angeles tim" and from the "miami herald,"

attack on hold, a photograph of the president as he spoke to reporters in the rose garden misafternoon yesterday. and from "the hill" newspaper, there is this -- the president's decision to ask congress to authorize a military strike represents an enormous gamble for the white house and one that could have lasting repercussions on presidential power. joining us live on the phone is the managing editor of "the" newspaper bob c-usa k. thank you very much for being with us. how big of a gamble is this? caller: i think it's a huge gamble. the president is going to congress. not a lot of things pass congress. certainly the last congress and this congress. this could be the exception to the rule. the tricky spot is the house, which, of course, is controlled by republicans. and i think a lawmaker to watch is nancy pelosi. she's going to have to shore up votes on the left but also there are going to be votes against syria on the right. so this is a highly unpredictable vote outcome and that's why the president is going to have to make the case i think consistently between now

and the votes. host: so walk us through the schedule. what is the time line in terms of hearings and when we could see a vote? we know that congress officially returns next week, september the 9th. caller: yes. it looks like there will be some hearings in the senate. the schedule has not yet been announced and that -- those hearings will happen actually this week. so after labor day there will be some action in the senate. there will also be briefings. there's a briefing today for members on capitol hill. and i believe that's at 2:00 p.m. but the votes won't happen until the week of the 9th. so both on the house and senate side, the votes will happen then. it's not clear also which chamber will go first. i would imagine the senate would go first because the chances of passage there i think are greater. but a lot of the big decisions of who is going to -- for example, who's going to be the one that introduces the resolution on syria in both the senate and the house? i would think that you'd need a democrat in the senate because

that chamber is controlled by democrats. and i think you need a republican in the house because it's controlled by the g.o.p. host: the white house did release the text of the letter for the that arization for the use of force in syria. that came late last night. you mentioned house republicans. one key house republican to watch is. ed royce. he issued a statement that reads as follows -- quote -- "the administration's syria policy has been incoherent and there are many unanswered questions, so i welcome the president's decision to seek congressional natioauthorization for any use f military force and look forward to a vigorous debate on this critical issue." he went on to say that "any proposed u.s. military response to the syrian regime's use of chemical weapons demands thorough and deliberate consideration." your comments. caller: translition, th translas on the president to make the case. house republicans are not going to be carrying his water. this is what the president

wants. he sought this. a lot of members did want him to go to congress. senator rand paul actually congratulated the president yesterday, said he's proud of him. but that doesn't mean senator rand paul isgo rhe syria resolution. so i think this is an uphill battle for the white house, one that they could win. but they've got a lot of work to do. host: let me share you with some of the reporting from mark landlard and there's a similar story in the washington post. the headline, "the president pulls lawmakers into the box that he made" and begins with these words. "the president's aides were stunned at what their boss had to say when he summoned them to the oval office friday evening at 7:00 p.m. on the eve of what they believed could have been a weekend when american missiles streaked again across the middle east. in that two-hour meeting of passionate, sharp debate in the oval office, the president told them that after a frantic week in which he seemed to be rushing towards a military attack on syria, he wanted to pull back and seek that congressional approval first. he had a couple of reasons, first and foremost, what happened in the british house of commons last week, rejecting a

proposal put forth by prime minister david cameron." based on your understanding of this white house and what we can expect, take us back to last friday evening and -- and the debate that ensued. caller: i tell you, we're in a 24/7 news cycle but if you just think a couple days ago, most people thought that a strike was imminent on syria and it could have happened as early as thursday. and then we saw this really stunning reversal by the white house. i think affected by letters in congress asking for congressional approval that got a lot of signatures from both republicans and democrats. and certainly the vote in great britain i think had an impact. but -- but you think that possibly that would have an impact the other way, that you wouldn't ask congressional approval, especially because the vote in britain on syria went down. so this is a gutsy call by the president and that's why so many people, including within the white house, were stunned and i think another key person to watch is joe biden.

he's the one who's gotten a lot of deals done in congress. he is definitely going to be making some calls to get the votes certainly on the senate side. host: it was a jointed statement by congressional republicans led by the speaker of the house, john boehner, available on speaker boehner's web site. let me share with you, bob c-usa k, part of what he and congressman eric kantor, the republican leader, the republican whip, and the conference cherish you'red in the statement, saying "we are glad the president is seeking authorization for any military action in syria in response to serious questions being raised, in consultation with the president, we expect the house to consider a measure the week of september the 9th." didn't give any indication as to how they view military intervention, but politically, what does this give the president, what does this do for members of congress? caller: well, as far as the schedule, it -- it -- we've got a busy schedule in september. the house is also scheduled to go out of -- into recess the third week, the week of september 23.

we have a government shutdown possibility. i think that recess could be canceled. but as far as members of congress and this vote, this is a very difficult vote. i think a lot of members are undecided. we've seen some members already come out and say where they are. charlie wrangle, a democrat from new york, said he's not going to be voting for this. but this is -- this is where the president's got to make the case. speaker boehner, as you mentioned, he sent a letter to president obama basically very detailed, a lot of questions that he feels has not been answered and he wants -- basically he wants to know, what's the plan. if you seek cruise missile strikes, then what? what is -- what is the overall plan? and that's going to be the question i think members are repeatedly asking. and the other question they're going to be looking at on the intelligence is, did the assad regime, is there proof that they were behind the chemical attacks? and they're going to need a lot of proof on that fact. we've seen some videos on youtube but they're going to

need clear proof that it was from assad in order to vote for this resolution. host: we're talking with bob c-usa k, managing editor of "the hill" newspaper. summarize and walk us through the time line. what can we expect? caller: i think this week you're going to see possibly the foreign relations committee hold a hearing on it. we're going to have classified briefings from members of congress. there will be a lot of conference calls. there will be basically a whipping operation run from -- from the white house because they've got the most vested in this. if this resolution goes down, this will significantly weaken president obama. so they've got to have both the house and senate pass these measures. and then next week, the week of september 9th, you're going to see a vote. whether it's the senate or house go first. if it passes the first chamber, it will go to the next. if it doesn't pass, well then it probably won't go to the other chamber and that's why i expect the senate to go first. but again, no decisions have been made on that. it looks like congress is not

going to be -- or the house will not be coming back before september 9 but the senate -- there will be some action this week in the senate, as in hearings. host: managing editor of "the hill" newspaper and more details on line at thehill.com. thanks for joining us. we'll get to your calls and reaction to all of this. but how is it playing overseas? there's this story from the bbc web site. the headline -- "the syrian crisis. obama delay could embolden syrian president assad." the story points out that there's concern about its impact on opposition leaders, saying that military action in syria could embolden assad. according to opposition leaders who are trying to force him out of office. more details available on-line from the bbc news web site. kevin is joining us, hartford, connecticut, independent line. your reaction to all of this. kevin, good morning. caller: i think the president might have done the right thing for the sake of america. america is not interested in war right now.

but my concern is -- my concern is c-span. my concern is. hello? host: go ahead. we're listening. caller: [inaudible] if a leader can gas his people and yet the opposition doesn't have anything to say? i don't understand. they oppose the president. they oppose the american people. america cannot police every part of the world. i don't see what is the urgency. i think we should stop the funding that organization and just call it a quit from there. host: to craig next in new york city, our line for democrats. good morning. caller: yes. hello? host: good morning. caller: yes. my idea about the president going to congress is that basically the american people are not exactly wishing this. if they go along, they're going along kicking and screaming. nobody likes a guy that's using

chemical weapons against his people. but it's sort of cynical, with no decapitation of the leadership, you know, just sending a few missiles. he could do it again. and if i was a syrian, i'm going to suffer the missiles coming in and maybe the anger of assad once again. and to me, asking congress to help him out on this gives him more time to get the international community to join him, which we don't hear about a lot of people backing him up on this. but hopefully the time delay that it takes for this stuff to -- back and forth between congress will give him a chance to get international people onboard with him. but i don't see this bringing assad to the -- to the table. but anything is possible and i thank you for taking my call. host: craig, thanks for the call. meanwhile, gene has this point on our twitter page. why did not the president request speaker boehner to recall congress if bombing in syria is so important?

and from the editorial pages, there is this from "the washington post" -- on to congress, is what the editorial states, pointing out that we also argued previously that the president should maximize congressional buy-in to the operation imperatives inside iraq or inside syria, i should say. in congress, like britain's parliament last week, could say no. a current of isolationism is running strong in both parties and many republicans welcome any opportunity to bloody the president's nose. th"the washington post" points out, we have enough faith in the institution and its leaders to believe that they will not treat the vote as such an opportunity. next call is mary ann joining us from atlantic beach, florida. good morning. go ahead, please. caller: yeah, the president is calling attention to the fact that agreements as important as the ban on using this kind of weapon, it exists. and if we ignore it and the world ignores it, what is the

point of an effort to do things on a worldwide basis to improve what we're supposed to be as human beings? i applaud the president for the first time. i just really have seen his world vision. he's appealing beyond politics, in my view. this is not a trick. and i'm sincerely hoping that the congressional members will understand his thinking and the importance of his position. and i generally am quite reluctant to praise the president, but on this point, he is exactly right. host: mary ann, thanks for the call from atlantic beach, florida. michael is joining us, riverside, california. good morning to you, michael. caller: yes, good morning, steve. first of all, i'd like to say that this is what he should have done in the first place, because if he's going to go to war and take -- spends millions and

billions of dollars attacking another nation, he really needs to get most of the people and america onboard. second, i'd like to say that we pay over $4 a gallon for gas here in california, and, of course, that means food prices and everything else is through the roof. now, for all of you warmongers out there, you think this is a joke. how would you like to see your gas at $6 or $7? and now you're worried about al qaeda and the taliban. well, guess what? you're going to have to add the hezbollah to your list of perspective terrorists. host: thanks for the call. if you're just tuning in or listening on c-span radio, which, by the way, is heard coast to coast on x.m. channel 119, we're getting your reaction to the announcement yesterday being described as a surprising, a stunning development, according to the "washington post," as the president now seeks congressional authorization on any attack on syria. again, the time line, as we heard from bob c-usa ck of "the

hill" newspaper is that the senate should begin hearings this week. any vote in both the house and senate also not expected until the week of september the 9th. yon is joining us from bradenton beach, florida, democrats line. what do you think of all of this? caller: good morning, steve. i appreciate you taking my call. i got a couple kids over there and i don't want to lose them for nothing. and this is a bar fight. and the best thing you can do in a bar fight is turn around and walk away. host: john, where are your children at the moment? caller: you know, they're on a ship and i don't know exactly where they're at, but, you know,

it's just -- this is something that you walk away from. it doesn't have anything to do with us and we need to move along and bring our kids back. that's how i feel. host: okay, john, thank you. and thank them for their service. appreciate your call from florida. the president did address the issue of the situation in iraq and afghanistan. he clearly ran for president in 2007-2008 running against those two wars by president george w. bush, and addressed that issue head-on yesterday in his rose garden statement. here's a portion. >[video clip] >> finally, let me say this to the american people. i know well we are weary of war. we've ended one war in iraq. we're ending another in afghanistan. the american people have the good sense to know we cannot resolve the underlying conflict in syria with our military. in that part of the world, there are ancient sectarian differences, and the hopes of the arab spring have unleashed forces of change that are going to take many years to resolve.

that's why we're not contemplating putting our troops in the middle of someone else's war. instead, we'll continue to support the syrian people through our pressure on the assad regime, our commitment to the opposition, our care for the displaced, and our pursuit of a political resolution that achieves a government that respects the dignity of its people. host: the president yesterday in the rose garden. meanwhile, david corn of "mother jones" is writing about all of this, claiming that neocons forcing the president into action. the story is available on the mother jones web site. david corn begins by pointing out that the drums of war are beating in various news reports with the president. now, this story was posted mid-week last week but it's based on a letter sent by a number of what are described as neocons to the president saying -- quote -- "we urge you to respond decisively by imposing meaningful consequences on the assad regime. at a minimum, the u.s., along with willing allies and partners, should use standoff weapons and air power to target

the syrian dictatorship's military units that were involved in the recent large-scale use of chemical weapons." among those who signed, elliott abrams, bill crystal, james church, robert lieber, max boot, and ambassador -- or ellen bork and ambassador l. paul bremer. again, the full list is available on the mother jones web site. their letter to the president urging for, what they called, decisive action against the assad regime. bobby is joining us, hyattsvil hyattsville, maryland, democrats line. good morning. thanks for waiting. caller: good morning, steve. ima native washingtonian and i'd like to speak for just one second on the effects of c-span on our political process. after we heard here in washington about the vote in the british parliament, you-all were able to rebroadcast the two-hour debates, which i'm sure a lot of

politicians in washington, d.c. had the opportunity to watch on our tv. and after we saw that open debate over this issue, we realized that our politicians -- our politicians came to the conclusion, rather, that we also needed more debate. and i'd like to thank c-span for finally putting their finger in our political pie, making us realize that we need to make our government function for the people. and i'd just like to conclude with saying that -- that it's a wonderful place and we really do need to focus on making the world a safer place. thank you. host: bobby, thanks for the call. our goal is not to put the finger in the face of anyone but also to -- rather, to show the country and the world essentially what happened. we carried that debate from the british house of commons, as we do every week, with question time. thanks for the call. thanks for listening.

cyrus is joining us from iran. good morning. caller: good morning, steve. good morning, everyone, on c-span. host: how are you viewing this program at the moment? caller: i'm viewing your program through satellite. as you know, satellite television is illegal in iran. our houses get stormed by revolutionary forces in order to take down the satellite dish. and there is a very heavy fine for having that, watching that. and also the government tries to jam it by sending a jamming signal which is bad for the pregnant women, for children and for the seniors. and this is the situation going on right now in iran. host: and your thoughts about what's happening in neighboring syria? caller: well, as you know, iran -- the government of iran, not the people of iran, is a strong ally of syria. us as iranian people, we really disgusted by the things that

assad is doing in syria. he's for her dictator another de dictator of iran. he's gassing his people and he's doing a massacre right now. and i just want to say something to president obama. president obama, you are the president of the superpower in the world and your responsibility goes beyond united states border. you drew the line on the assad gassing its people and he went ahead and did that. and right now the world is looking to you. and you've got to do something. this goes to the core of the united states credibility. if you don't do anything. but if you are seeking congressional authorization, what if the congress doesn't give you the mandate to, i don't know, eradicate syria's chemical weapons and chemical arsenal? what's going to happen next? then -- the mull las in iran are going to go ahead with the nuclear programs.

so i just want to give my voice and give the people of iran's voice that we expect -- you know, four years ago we took to the streets and we demonstrated against the iranian dictatorsh dictatorship. again we were waiting for president obama to do something. and the only thing he did, he waited for a week and he didn't make any comments, nothing, because he was seeking some sort of establishment of some sort of resuming relations with iran. he didn't back us. and but he just -- you know, president obama seems to be a democratic man but i don't know why he's hesitant in dealing with dictators, especially at such critical time. host: let me just ask you quickly because you're inside iran. do you think that if we attack syria, it does appear likely even if the president does not get congressional authorization, that iran would attack israel? caller: well, iran is dealing with a whole lot of problems right now. as you know, iran is being

choked off by the sanctions. the economy is terrible here. and the -- iran, despite of all the huffing and puffing of attacking israel, does not enjoy the backing of its people. i'm talking about the majority of the people. i'm not talking about the people who are affiliated with the system, with the regime, or people who are, i don't know, who are revolutionary guard. i'm talking about the people who are hungry for freedom in iran. so if united states takes decisive action, if united states says that it means business, i -- i don't think that iran is going to attack or iran is going to seek any outside its borders, kind of -- you know, it's going to be a huge reach for the mul mullahs i don't think they're going to do that. we need president obama to be decisive and firm and be strong because he himself drew the

line. and right now he's something -- he's saying something else. and i'm afraid if he doesn't do anything, it goes to the core of united states credibility. i'm sorry to say i believe that the united states hasn't had -- i think president obama is the weakest united states president ever united states had. host: i'm going to stop you there. thank you very much, by the way, for sharing your perspective from inside iran. appreciate the phone call. caller: thank you very much. host: thank you for being with us. from the front page page o of te "washington post" there's a photograph of the president and vice president who then board a helicopter to go to fort belvoir to have a round of golf. "syria attack is put on hold." and there's details of what happened in the friday evening session in the oval office in a debait about whether to involve lawmakers. he begins by pointing out that the president campaigned for

office as a critic of the bush administration's lack of consensus. on the briggesafter weeks of deg that the government of assad had used chemical weapons, obama was believed by some of his closest aides to be willing to launch a military strike against syria, even if the administration lacked the support of the u.s. and its closest ally, great britain. but the piece points out that at 7:00 p.m. friday, a handful of obama's closest aides, including national security advisor susan rice, were summoned to the white house. according to administration officials, the president concluded that he needed congressional authorization. there is this from george monroe on our twitter page. "congress got what it had been yammering for. now go to work." here's more from the president on that issue of asking congress for its support from his statement yesterday. [video clip] >> we all know there are no easy options but i wasn't elected to avoid hard decisions and nehhe e

and the senate. i've told you what i believe, that our security and our values demand that we cannot turn away from the massacre of countless civilians with chemical weapons. and our democracy is stronger when the president and the people's representatives stand together. i'm ready to act in the face of this outrage. today i'm asking congress to send a message to the world that we are ready to move forward together as one nation. host: the comments of the president yesterday in the rose garden. bob is joining us from smith station, alabama, independent line. your reaction to all of this. caller: hello? host: yes, bob, good morning. caller: yeah. the way obama's doing a lot of things, he's overriding the constitution quite a bit and i believe that he's going to eventually be made to comply with the constitution of this

country. that document's put there for a reason and people need to put a lot of deep thought into that and -- and think about that and read it and understand it. and we've got to give back to living by it. because this man here acting as a dictator and trying to just make his own laws as he goes. it's always all about him. it's "i" "me" and "us." he's no different than ahmadinejad, in my book. i'm sorry, i just listened to you awhile ago talk to the man from overseas. and we need to do something about his -- his progress. he's not making any progress. he never has. he's not done one thing good for this country. and that's how -- i could say a lot more but i need to stop before i get in trouble. thank you. host: mike murphy has this point, that a raid on syria, will anyone be safer, is pure malarkey. and this e-mail -- by the way, you can send us an e-mail --

larry says the only reason the president is asking for congressional approval is because he's hoping that they will bail him out of his red-line statement which he would have been forced to actually act upon if the brits hadn't voted "no." he is in over his head. he has no real plan and is looking for negative sound bites for the 2014 election against republicans. next is charles joining us from dekalb, illinois. good morning. caller: hello. host: yes. good morning, charles. caller: yes, i just wanted to say i think it's great that the president is doing what he's doing with congress. i feel that a lot of politicians out there are using this as a tool to make the president look bad. and i've also been a little disappointed in a lot of the media outlets that are really twisting all of this and making a lot of statements that are just twisting everything for the public and a lot of storylines. and i also feel that we shouldn't be the world's police

and that all the countries over in the mideast aren't going to come together, that have also banked against all these banned against ou all these chemical weapons. and i believe why should we go over there and expend our resources if they're not going to band together as world. all these people are saying america is not doing anything. but they're not coming. the gentleman from iran -- somebody from her to country, it's always america, america, america, why isn't america doing this and doing that. i just don't understand why it's always us. host: thanks for the call. david sanger writes for the "new york times" and the headline, "tripping on his own red line?" the president's own caution about foreign intervention puts him in this spot, writes david

sanger. henry is joining us from parkville, maryland, on our lean for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, i think the president is making a very smart move but i think he's trying to back out of his red-line comment, like your earlier commenter said. i think he put himself in a bad position. right now we've got four cruisers -- four destroyers over there and probably a couple submarines. but the tomahawk missiles aren't going to really do anything effective to stop the gas attacks. any bunkers they attack or any headquarters they attack are going to be emptied by the time the tomahawk missiles hit them. there's nothing really we can effect wallize iual. >> isiaheffectualize. a lot of things can spiral out of control. but we do need to look tough when it comes to chemical weapons being used. but i think for the main point

is, you know, in the syrian conflict, the chemical weapons are a very small matter. you know, most of the damage has been done by conventional weapons. and i think something does need to be done. but i think he understands that we have no real clear goals of success in going in there. and, you know, he can go -- i'm sorry. host: okay. i'm just saying okay. no, please continue. caller: oh, yes. we have no clear goals of success in going in there. and we have nothing -- we have nothing to stop the gas from happening again. so unless we set up airfields and antimissile platforms, which is all going to cost a lot of money, be very unpopular and will be without the support of our allies, i think -- i really don't see how we can -- how we can effectualize any change in syria. i think that something needs to be done but i don't see how you can do it with tomahawk missiles. host: henry, thanks for the

call. one other point. why should the u.s. step in to help al qaeda, is the question mark. and from the ""atlanta journal constitution"" there is this headline, the president saying congress will get its say on syria. well, earlier we had a caller with reference to the united nations. we want to get that perspective and joining us live on the phone is joe laurie who covers the u.n. for the "wall street journal." thanks very much for being with us. guest: good morning. host: where is the u.n. in all of this? guest: well, they're kind of on the margins, i have to say, which is often the case when we get close to a conflict. as the president said yesterday, basically that the u.n. is irrelevant. he didn't use those terms. george bush would have used more aggressive terms against the u.n., like irrelevant. he actually said that. but the president is saying basically he doesn't need a security council resolution to go to war. he said he wanted congressional approval but he said he didn't

need the security council to go to war, and he didn't have to wait for the weapons inspectors' tests to come back from the lab. what happened, the inspectors came out of syria yesterday. now, a lot of people are debating what happened in iraq back in 2003. the inspectors had just arrived there to investigate three earlier sites of small -- much smaller use of chemical weapons. they just happened to be there when this incident took place. and the syrian government, after three days, allowed the inspectors to go out there and they collected samples and they've left. what has to be kept in mind is that the inspectors, the mandate given to them by the general assembly -- and they report back to the secretary-general -- the mandate is simply to discover whether chemical weapons were used or not. not who used them. of course, that's the key issue in the international community right now, who used them. because the russians and the syrians and the iranians and some others do not believe that the government of syria actually did this, that they wouldn't be stupid enough to do this because

what the result could be is an attack by the united states. and also, having the inspectors in the country and then use them, chemical weapons inspectors, in your own country when you've invited in and then using chemical weapons seems kind of -- i guess it's a trouble. plus, mr. assad has been winning on the battlefield recently anyway. the cost of war has been going back and forth over the last 2 1/2 years but he's been winning on the battlefield. mr. putin yesterday made some very strong remarks rejecting the american unclassified dossier that we saw and demanding that the evidence be presented to the security council. and it's just something that's not going to happen, it looks like. the united states again is moving forward on its own time line and the united nations is not going to play a major role in this, unfortunately, for those who would like to see the u.n. be, you know, a peacemaker. host: let me go back to president putin's comments, the russian leader, because he said it was -- it would have been --

quote -- "utter nonsense" for the syrian government to use chemical weapons, as the white house alleges. guest: and he went further than that. he's suggesting, as others are, that it was the -- the rebels in some way used chemicals themselves to perpetrate this attack to get the response, to provoke a military action by the united states, which, of course, the u.s. is right now contemplating. and there are -- i have to say, there have been incidences in turkey and iraq earlier this year within a few days of each other back in may and june where some of the rebels associated with the syrian conflict were arrested with either chlorine gas or trying to make mustard and sarin gas. you go back to 2007, al qaeda in iraq was found to have a few instances used chlorine and killed 12 people. and this al qaeda in iraq, of course, has now merged with the al qaeda -- the al-nousra front which is fighting in syria

against assad. and these are foreign fighters as well. one has to keep in mind, they may not have sympathy with syrian civilians. they're in many ways working at the behes of outsid behest of o. so it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the rebels would have done this to provoke the very discussion you're having on c-span today, whether the united states should go to war. but i like some of the comments that your viewers have made, very intelligent ones, that even if there was a strike, you know, even the president is not pretending that this is going to change the course of the war. it is a show of force, i think, that they're contemplating. host: we're talk about joe lauria, who covers the united nations for the "wall street journal." and the secretary of state is reportedly telling opposition leaders that we stand by you, we support you. there was a story in th story ob site that this could embolden president assad. and late last week, the secretary of state also had this to say about the international

community with regard to syria. [video clip] smi >> they want to see whether the united states and our friends mean what we say. it is directly related to our credibility and whether countries still believe the united states when it says something. they are watching to see if syria can get away with it because then maybe they, too, can put the world at greater risk. and make no mistake, in an increasingly complicated world of sectarian and religious extremist violence, what we choose to do or not do matters in real ways to our own securi security. some cite the risk of doing things, but we need to ask, what is the risk of doing nothing? it matters, because if we choose to live in a world where a thug and a murderer like bashar al assad can gas thousands of his

own people with impunity even after the united states and our allies said no, and then the world does nothing about it, there will be no end to the test of our resolve and the dangers that will flow from those others who believe that they can do as they will. host: secretary of state kerry last friday at the state department. joe lauria, who is following all of this from new york at the united nations. your comment. guest: well, first, it's interesting that kerry made that speech and not obama. if you're going to go to war, that's a speech that normally a president makes. and number two, this is all mostly or a lot about the american credibility. he made that clear. we said we were going to do something if this kind of thing happens, we've got to do it now. and you wonder whether that's the right reason to go to war, just if you paint yourself in a corner. but number three, the clear message is to iran there, that if we don't -- if we don't back up what we're saying about syria on a small matter -- relatively small matter of this gas attack,

which maybe a thousand people died, but he's referring to the nuclear program of iran. that he wants to send a message to iran that the u.s. means when they said they have not taken force off the table with regards to iran's nuclear program, that they mean it. those are the things that i think kerry was saying there. and i don't know if iran's going to get the message. but certainly the war in syria in many ways is all about iran, has been from the beginning, because iran is heavily involved in the syrian war. they're helping the syrian government. they have iranian guard -- fighters are inside syria, as many foreign fighters are. so they want to send a message to iran there. they want to cut off assad, which would, of course, stop the iranians from giving weapons to hezbollah in lebanon. it's all connected. and getting iran through syria has been a big strategy of gulf countries as well, which is very hard to attack iran straight on. they're very strong. if you can cut off assad, that

would really weaken iran. so i think that secretary kerry was talking about iran very clearly. guest: joe lauria covers the united nations in new york. thanks very much for adding your voice to this program. guest: thanks a lot. host: there is this from joe ramirez -- congress, get back to d.c. and get to work. james pratt has this to say on our facebook page. it's none of our business, he says. let the arab league of nations take care of it. james says -- this is tactical. wow, he, the president, is good. meanwhile, michael thomas says, "you mean he's not going to be bush 2 and congress can either say no, like they've been for years, or they can say yes and be against the will of people. what are you going to do, congress?" ben says this -- it's his only way out of a stupid mess. if congress says no, he's out of

it. if congress says yes, they're complicit. and jacki lawson says, smart move. if congress agrees, then let's do it. if not, then let's stay out. more of your calls on the president's decision to seek congressional approval authorizing any force in syria. michael is joining us from carnie, new jersey, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, let's see who's behind the statement of the middle east. it's the turkish. they say all these benefits with that because they have a problem with the iranian. and most of the people live in syria are shia. and the people in charge of the country is 10% christian, 10% some shias. so what is all of this? they're pushing us to involve in a war. the turkish also -- have we forgot what the turkey done to the armenians? they killed 800,000 people.

and what happened in sudan? they killed about 2 million people. and in africa, all around -- or many years ago, millions of people got killed. we never got involved. and what happened now if it collapse. what's the future of the christian people live there? look what happened in egypt. as soon as the muslim brotherhood took over, what did they do? they burned 50% of the churches. the christian in iraq is finished. no more christian in iraq. what we doing? you know, what -- [inaudible] for the last years, they will not talk to the united states. they have a very bad relationship because he's pushing united states to get involved in syria a long time ago. host: thanks for the call from new jersey. doug has this point. it is not our way to stay out of it. this cannot benefit anyone. some other news this morning from the bbc web site on former south african president nelson mandela, who has been

hospitalized since june. the story points out that he has been discharged from a south african hospital. the announcement coming a day after officials denied reports that the 95-year-old had already been discharged. a statement saying that his team of doctors convinced that he will receive the same level of intensive care at his home that he has been receiving for the last couple of months in the pretoria hospital. back to your calls and comments on the president seeking congressional authorization with regard to syria and this statement from the house democratic leader, nancy pelosi of california. "president obama is right that the debate and authorization by congress for action will make our country and the response in syria stronger. president assad was wrong to gas the syrian people, killing more than 1,400 people, including 400 children. it is a pillar of america's security that we must stop the use and the proliferation of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons." that statement from the democratic leader in the house and the former speaker, nancy pelosi. linda is joining us from

arkansas, democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm calling to say that i oppose any involvement in syria. i think the president is right to seek congressional approval. i think that generally he is doing a good job. i don't want to see a repeat of what happened with the -- in the bush term with iraq and sending our soldiers over to die for something that did not even exist. i believe that necessarily it could have been the rebels that gassed these people. i don't necessarily believe that it was assad. we don't know that. and i believe the rebels, a lot of them would do anything to get us involved in this war, to give them the upper edge over the current administration. i don't want to see america engaged in another involvement overseas. the president said we would do nation-building and i believe that that is the utmost important thing. bring our boys home and our men -- men and women home from iraq

and over in the middle east. now, i am tired of all of this and i think a lot of this is propaganda to get the u.s. involved. i hope congress -- i'm glad it's before congress, as i said, and i think president obama's doing generally a good job. i don't agree with everything he does. however, i think -- i really believe that we have -- we should pause and question where this chemical attack came from. these people are ruthless over there, and once we -- if we eliminate assad for them, they're not going to be our friends. we will have been used. hezbollah and all of those other militant groups over there care nothing for democracy. they want to oppress their own people, as we see them -- have seen that done for years and daily. host: linda, thanks for the call from arkansas. jordan has this point of view on our twitter page. "the risk of waging war is

unthinkably responsible and the u.s. will be getting voflgd i in a religious war." one voice aformer house member senator blunt of missouri. roy blunt said, "after weeks of claiming that he could and would make this decision on his own, the president's aannouncement today marks an astonishing change of course. while congressional approval is the best course of action and the right thing to do, it would have been simpler and easier if he could have done it earlier. he could have done so if he had asked congress to get that approval." that statement from senator roy blunt of missouri. by the way, as the hearings unfold, if they happen this week in the senate, and, of course, next week in the house and the senate, along with any expected debate and vote in those two chambers, live coverage here on c-span, also on c-span2. and, of course, any time on c-span radio. and check it out at cspan.org. last call on all of this is michael from le high acres, florida, republican line. good morning. caller: hi, good morning, steve.

how are you doing? host: fine, thank you. caller: i'm not a first believer in the nut job conspiracy that the rebels gassed them. but i do believe that the united states iunitedstates does not b. there's no benefit. these are the same people that were jumping, dancing around, celebrating in the streets during the 9/11. you know, what happened there with many dead americans. we don't belong involved in this. host: okay. thanks for the call. one other headline from the pittsburgh post-gazette. obama asking congress for an okay on syrian action. we'll continue with more of this koncoming up in just a moment. nick gillespie of reason.com and reason tv to talk about what's next in syria. reaction from the libertarian point of view and also what it means for republicans in the house and the senate. and later, gordon adams from american university, professor of international studies, will be joining us. much of the morning focused on the president's announcement

yesterday and what it means moving ahead. of course, that issue dominating the sunday morning programs as well. the c-span radio studios on what we can expect on those shows. nancy, good morning. >> good morning. on today's sunday talk show, syria is the main focus and you can hear rebroadcast of the programs on c-span radio beginning at 12:00 noon eastern with nbc's "meet the press." today's guests include new jersenewjersey senator bob men . and on "this week," retired general james cartright. then at 2:00, it's "fo ""fox nes sunday"" with jack reed of rhode island, republican senator james inhofe of oklahoma, and congressman peter king, chairman of the house select committee on intelligence. cnn's state of the union followed at 3:00.

candy crowley talks with democratic representative elliott engle, house armed service member, republican representative scott ridule and chris murphy, a senate foreign relations member. then it's democratic senator tim kaine. the sunday network tv talk shows on c-span radio are broad to you as a public service by the networks and c-span. again, rebroadcasts of the shows begin at 12:00 noon eastern with nbc's meet the press, "this week at 1:00. at 2, "fox news sunday." " 3:00, cnn's state of the union," and finally at 4:00, "face the nation" from cbs. listen on c-span radio. across the country on x.m. satellite radio channel 119. or listen on-line at

cspanradio.org. >> one of the most fun times i had, it was 2006 and it really looked like the democrats were going to take back the house and

it was looking pretty bad for republicans. and vice president cheney's office called and wanted to know if rothenberg and i could come over and have breakfast with him. so we went over to the vice president's residence and had breakfast with him. i had met him before but i didn't know him. first of all, it was unbelievable how much he knew about individual -- i mean, he had been to so many of these districts over the years as one of the republican leaders of the house and this and that. but basically he was sort of asking us how bad is this? and we were saying, yeah, it's -- it's pretty bad. but that's kind of fun when you get to do that or talk to the various caucuses on both sides and, you know, you kind of get a glimpse of the inside and the players. >> with more than 30 years as a political analyst, charlie cook has uncovered the trends while tracking every congressional race since 1984. see the rest of this "q & a" interview tonight at 8:00 on c-span. >> it's how these people endure and prevail in the very rough world of politics. >> historians richard norton smith and edith mayo preview c-span's season two of "first ladies: influence." looks at their private lives and roles. monday night at 9:00 eastern on

c-span, c-span radio and cspan.org. host: nick gillespie is the editor and chief of reason.com and reason tv. good morning. thanks very much for being with us. guest: thanks for having me. host: this is one photograph from "the washington post" outside the white house, as the president was making his decision to call on congress for any authorization of force in syria. you can see the animated debate back and forth. "no war in syria." supporters of the war in syria. give us a sense from your perspective what's happening in this country, what's the debate all about? guest: you know, i think there are at least two d debates and there's the one large debate about whether we should be involving ourselves in another middle east conflict based on chemical weapons. that's a huge debate and it's important and it's also

overwhelming. there's another debate which is probably more in the long term is more important, which has to do with whether or not the president of the united states is actually bound by the constitution to seek approval from congress when he wants to use military force unless somebody is actually attacking us directly or is about to. and i think that that's great, that this is something obviously obama didn't want to do but in seeking -- going to congress for authorization, there's a couple hundred house members have asked and a bunch of senators have, you know, loudly called for, i think that's a major step forward in terms of actually restoring something like the constitutional separation of powers and balance of powers between people. so we're in the middle of two debates. the one on syria, if -- you know, if the president listens to the will of the people, we're not doing anything in syria. but more important, at least he is talking to congress -- he's getting kind of legitimacy from congress. host: michael len of "politico" was calling this one of the must reads on sunday morning. it's the front-page story from

"the new york times." there's a similar piece by scott wilson in "the washington post" but this one by mark landler. and i just want to share with you part of what he reports this morning. the president's aides were -- quote -- "stunned at what they heard when they called the white house chief of staff, susan rice and others into the oval office for what ended up being a two-hour debate, the president announcing his decision to white house staffers that he was going to seek congressional approval." and then there is this one part of the story that says that he made the decision in part because of what happened in great britain but also he wanted to make sure that congress would get in when he really made need something in terms of approval for military action with iran or elsewhere in the next three years of his administration. guest: right. this also puts to lie the idea that an administration official in the "l.a. times" last week was quoted as saying, you know what, this is an action which is not supposed to -- you know, topple assad. it is not a preemptive strike. it is a post -- you know, a post

event, saying it's supposed to discipline him. and, you know, this puts the lie to that, which is that obama, you know, he was saying -- his people were saying, you know, we're going to hit just enough, we're going to throw a couple missiles or whatever, no boots on the ground, no anything, we're just going to show -- make a point and get out. in fact, you can't do that and that's an idiotic way to think about engagement. when you -- you know, when you shoot one missile, you have to be ready for a lot more. so it's i think an acceptance on the part or an acknowledgment on the part of obama that he was kind of blowing smoke when he was saying we can do a surgical strike that will prove a point and then we can get on with, you know, with never talking about syria again. host: two headlines first from "the new york times," "the sloarg march to military action in syria" is front page and then there's this from the "denver sunday post," an about-face on syria. is it an about-face? guest: yeah, i think so. in terms of obama, and he did this in libya, he has done this in various legal documents, including, you know, his secret

legal interpretations of constitutional law regarding a kill list, that he doesn't really have to talk to anybody about this outside of the executive branch on who he decides to put on a secret kill list or not. there has been a -- a considerable and continuing kind of contempt for any limitation on executive power under -- under obama and he was saying that about syria, "i don't need to go to congress." "i don't need anybody's approval to do this because i'm the president." so i do think it's an about-face. whether or not it's a savvy political move, which is what most of the papers seem to be kind of interested in, is less interesting to me simplely because this does restore a measure of constitutional checks and balances into the war making apparatus. and lord knows we immediate it after need it aftera dozen year. the 21st century in the united states has been one of crummy economic policies, overregulation by republicans and democrats, massive new

entitlements, and a warfare state, which is pretty much unprecedented. and i don't know that we've been at constant war for a dozen years and we are looking at more going forward. it's good that we are finally getting congress and the president into the act of saying, okay, you know, how are we going to govern our foreign policy? host: our conversation with nick gill lessee of reason.com and reason tv. he's the coauthor of the book "the declaration of independence." how libertarian politics can fix what's wrong with america. he earned his undergraduate degree from rutgers university and masters from temple and a doctorate if buffalo. guest: if i can point out, all three of them lost their opening football games so everything is back to normal in the world. host: [laughter] let me share with you that old axiom, where you stand depends on where you sit. this is senator joe biden, as he was running for president in 2007, on msnbc's "hardball" wih

-- how do you stand on that now? >> yes, i do. i want to stand by that comment i made. the reason i made the comment was as a warning. the reason i made -- i don't say those things lightly, chris. you've known me for a long tame. i was chairman of the judiciary committee for 17 years or its ranking member. i chief separation of powers and constitutional law. this is something i know. so i got together and brought a group of constitutional scholars together to write a piece that i'm going to deliver to the whole united states senate pointing out the president has no constitutional authority to take this nation to war against a country of 70 million people unless we're attacked or unless there is proof that we are about to be attacked. and if he does, if he does, i would move to impeach him. the house obviously has to do that but i would lead an effort to impeach him. the reason for my doing that -- and i don't say it lightly -- i don't say it lightly -- i say it because they should understand

that what they were threatening, what they were saying, what was adding up to be what looked like to the rest of the world what we were about to do, would be the most disastrous thing that could be done at this moment in our history that i can think of. host: november 2007 on msnbc, senator joe biden. guest: and senator obama also made similar arguments about how the president cannot act unilaterally except under very specific and constrained circumstances. so again, i'm glad -- you know, i'm glad to see that the obama administration is finally acting in accordance with constitutional law and i don't think they should get a lot of credit for that. i think that should be the status quo. it's also good to see congress flexing its muscles. i mean, back with the libya engagement, where obama unilaterally joined nato, a force where we led from behind in bombing libya, which has not worked out well for the united states, obviously, when you think about the current

situation in libya. it took people like rand paul, the libertarian republican senator from kentucky, to insist on retroactively at least having a vote on whether or not we should be in libya or not. and that went nowhere in congress. so we're also seeing congress i think getting a little bit of a backbone to say hey, you know what? we really need to do more than kind of sit ask watch on the sidelines. host: check out the web site at reason.com. our conversation with nick gillespie. and there's this from cindy who tweets in, "what is constitutional with the president's war powers act? the president can act in limited circumstances without congressional vote by notifying congress." the war powers act, which dates back to 18 1973. and congress has not fully authorized war, if i'm not mistaken, since 1942. guest: that's correct. and there are questions about the constitutionality of the war powers act that has never been fully vetted through the supreme court process, but there's no question that even urn the war r

powers act that attacking syria or libya, it's a pretty dicey case. you're supposed to be -- you know, again, these are under limited circumstances. the president simply does not have the right to willy-nilly start dispatching troops that are going to entail ongoing and long commitments, especially when it's not about something directly related to national defense. host: deborah joining us from hampton, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to call in defense of the president's decision to seek congressional approval. but i think initially, i think the idea was that it would be limited and that would have made any action that he did take limited in its scope to be, you know, legal. so i just wanted to call and say that. guest: well, it's also interesting because some observers have said, you know, obama, in terms of talking about a very limited, targeted strike,

you know, they always love to use the term "surgical" as if bombing, even with today's technology, is somehow superprecise. but critics have been saying obama's trying to get a little bit pregnant here. once you start lobbing missiles, once you start attacking a country, you have to have a contingency plan. if nothing else, the past dozen years of failed and muddled american operations in afghanistan and iraq, not to mention libya, shows if you -- you cannot go to war without a fully thought-through exit-withdrawal plan, various contingency plans, otherwise you get stuck in a big mess. and this is part of the problem i think with those -- with the syrian adventure, so far the way it's been talked about. it's going to be so limited. it's not -- it really is here. i mean, and obama's supporters were talking about this, we're really doing this to save his credibility because he had made a red-line comment a year ago and then when the first evidence supposedly that the u.s.

government says is totally certain that weapons were used, he didn't do anything earlier in the year. so, you know, i mean, it's a very uncomfortable idea, this certainly from a libertarian perspective, but i think it's from any american perspective. if we're shooting missiles into syria in order to preserve the president's credibility, that's his problem and he has no right, moral or otherwise, to drag the rest of america into, you know, a credibility problem of his own choosing. host: let me share with you a couple e-mails. this is from greg who lives in alexandria, virginia. he begins by saying i know this will not make it on the air. but they are so thank you. the potus has skillful crafted a no-win for the congress. if they do not vote to support him, the republicans will be viewed as weak on defense. if they volt t vote to support e president on aggressive action against syria and it goes wrong, they will get the blame during the upcoming election. well played. and there's this from bill who's joining us from twin lakes, michigan. his e-mail -- my president's decision to have congress make

the go/no-go decision was brilliant since he decision he made was going to be wrong. and if congress votes "no go" the president has nothing to be embarrassed about. the embarrassment will be with theirs and the american majority. guest: yeah, again, you know, this is -- i find it a little bit -- it's understandable but i find it a bit disturbing that we're already more talking about this in terms of how it's going to play politically domestically, although -- and it's important to understand in an american context, i think in any government's -- in any nation's context, foreign policy is really more about domestic policy. the fact of the matter is, is that if congress votes down the idea that we can -- you know, we should attack or engage syria militarily, i don't think that's a loss for congress. people are tired of war. 80% of americans don't think that we have a reason to attack syria or we should get involved. and, you know, i'm hoping that what you will see is that particularly in the republican party, you will see the

insurgent and ascendant libertarian wing which is saying, you know, what we've been doing for the past 13 years in the 21st century has not worked well. a major part of that is failed foreign policy that was started under bush and the republicans and has continued under obama and the democrats. so i'm hoping that we see them really flex their muscle and make their case for why a stronger america is precisely one that does not start getting involved in civil wars overseas, which could lead to major, major confrontations and regional conflicts. host: mike says, syria is no threat to the u.s. national security. let's see how it plays out in debates. the president has not made the case. john is joining us from kansas city, republican line, with nick gillespie of reason television. good morning. caller: good morning. and i will say mr. gillespie's spot on. i'm conservative. this is only an attack plan which has options for bad and

worse for the world. the attack will not deter, neutralize, suppress or destroy the enemy capability. it is just going to provoke a larger response in the middle east region and the victims of that response will be the united states and israel. i've written -- or i've drafted a letter to my congressmen and said, i recommend against this particular course of action. this is not good lawmaking. guest: i think it's always great to hear people talking about writing to their congressmen or congress critters, as the caller put it, because that is -- i mean, we're supposed to have a representative democracy. there are limits on that because we have certain rights that should never be taken away from people. i mean, that's the premise of the constitution and of limited government. but in cases like this, i think it's great that people are voicing their opinions, even if i don't agree with it directly to the representatives.

host: mike joining us, good morning, from boulder, colorado, democrats line. caller: good morning. in listening to the president's rose garden speech, it seems that sort of his underlying reason for recommending to congress action in syria is that the chemical warfare treaty, which i'm really not that familiar with, obligates us to engage. and, nick, i was wondering if you are familiar with the treaty and whether or not in fact language of the treaty does obligate the u.s. in fact to engage? guest: well, there are a number of conventions, including the geneva conventions and other treaties, that the u.s. is party to which generally, if i'm correct, syria is not, always that -- you know, we can put that aside for the minute. it is not clear that -- or, let's put it this way. the united states, which it recently came out just last week

through various kinds of things coming from wiki leaks and edward snowden and other sources, the u.s. helped supply poison gas or stiewd b or stoodn saddam hussein used poison gas against his own people and against iranians during the war between iraq and iran. we're not obligated. we can go and lobby various international organizations, and this is also part of the problem. the american people i think are tired of lots of stuff. one of them are the empty words and empty promises that gesture towards ideals and principles that are more important than politics. you know, the fact of the matter is, is that when george bush couldn't get a real coalition of the willing and so he just said, oh, well, screw the u.n., after making a gesture towards them, people on the left generally were aghast at that and they said, you need to have the world behind you. now it's people on the right saying, you know, the fact that obama can't get great britain or many of our allies to join him,

or much less the arab countries surrounding syria and the arab league, is a sign that this is not something that's worth pursuing. you know, i think what we're seeing in obama's second term more broadly than this issue is people finally understanding we had eight years of a republican president who said one thing and did something very different. we're five years into a democratic president who makes a lot of claims and grand commitments to constitutional limitations and the rule of law and all of this type of stuff, decentralizing power, and, in fact, is acting in the exact opposite. and i think people are -- you know, people are finally tired of, oh, yeah, i'm going to be the most transparent president in the world but i'm going to do all of that in secret. host: i want to go back to the political aspect. this is the headline from "politico," pointing out the white house has had a full week laying out a plan for war that was brought to halt with the president's announcement yesterday. and "politico" puts it this way. "the president is staking his

syria strategy and maybe more on an unlikely ally, congress. facing public imaf lens and a on capitol hill, the president makining a decision yesterday, candidate obama campaigned in 2008 against the wars in iraq and afghanistan. a flip side, a losing vote could weaken the president ahead of debates on some key domestic issues, including the budget, debt ceiling. the president's half-cour presi. and it could embolden syria, iran and other u unfriendly nations." guest: and certainly russia. there's already a chill between russia and the u.s. and putin is very interested in playing macho head games with everyone is already emboldened. there's a lot to that. and i do think if obama, if this does not go his way, will weaken his presidency. and even if it does, he will have been shown to really have

to reign in his immediate impulses and beerial tendenciesl tendencies. the other thing that's interesting to me, where will the antiwar democrats be? the resolution -- you know, over the latter years of the bush administration, there were a lot of critics of -- of a really promiscuous and ultimately ineffective and ineffectual foreign policy that was waged by the republicans under george bush. i'm hoping to see that the democrats do not fall into a lock-step party line on this issue, because i think anybody who takes seriously america's responsibilities in the world and engagements in the world cannot go along with this kind of syria plan, where we're just going to go in and, you know, lob a few shells and then get out and say, you know, we've done our duty here. it's messed up. and we've seen already democratic congressman -- i heard zo loftgren of california, a high-ranking member on the foreign affairs committee, saying like, you know, i want a congressional vote but then she

wouldn't say which way she's going to vote. there's going to be a lot of arm turning on the democrats who are generally antiwar to go along with the president. and their credibility will really be tested by this. because if you have a lot of congresspeople who were against war under bush and now are in favor of it under obama, people are not stupid. you know, and our leaders really do think we are. and people are going to remember that type of stuff and they're going to be punishing republicans and democrats who say they vote for principles but are always just political in the crassest sense of the word. host: i don't know if you had a chance to see the poll out last week. 79% of those surveyed saying that before we act in syria, congress should have a voice. guest: absolutely. that's absolutely true. and it's about the same in terms of people saying, you know, should we be involved? because, i mean, you know, just on the face of it, the only argument that the obama administration and other people, including people like john mccain and lindsey graham and kind of the war hawks, the angry bird faction of the republican

party, can make is the use of chemical weapons changes the equation. and we're not even going to wait to make sure that chemical weapons were used. we're not even going to make sure to know who used them. we've got to go in no matter what. and, you know, that is an argument to call back to the the earlier caller, that needs to be proven. it's not clear why chemical weapons in this day and age should be considered a class of weapons that cannot, you know, ever -- you know, ever -- or must trigger a red-line response. over 100,000 people have died in the syrian civil war. we're looking at 1,400 or something, you know, about 1% or 2% of the casualties from chemical weapons. it's an odd moral calculation where you're saying certainly a certain type of weapon was used to kill people, that triggers an international response. host: senator john mccain and secretary of state john kerry among the guests on the sunday morning programs.

we welcome our listeners at c-span radio. heard coast to coast on x.m. channel 119. nick gillespie is our guest. he's the editor in chief of reason.com and reason tv. and a couple of e-mails, this is from peter who says, "obama punted. he could still take action without congressional approval. where was the moral high ground when 100,000 syrians had been gassed? now he is taking action because last week 1,467 people were gassed. saddam hussein gassed thousands of kurds in north iraq." c.j. has this from florida. "we have an amateur in the white house who doesn't know what he's doing. two years ago he said that aassad must go. he did nothing. on a smaller scale, assad used chemical weapons earlier and obama did nothing." guest: well, i mean, the second letter is more accurate. it's not 100,000 people who were gassed. that's over 100,000 that have been killed in the syrian civil war. you know, without just, you

know, calling names in the white house, what-not, i mean, i do think we are -- you know, we're a dozen, 13 years into the 21st century and america has not had a true national discussion on foreign policy and our role in a post-cold war era, even though the soviet union dissolved in 1991. this is a long overdue strategy. we cannot exist, we're not an empire like rome was, we're not an empire like england was in the 19th century and early 20th century. but the fact of the matter is, is that if the united states is going to start getting involved in every country's internal affairs, we -- you know, we should just give up now because that is -- that's a road to ruin. no -- no country can really be a republic at home if it's -- if it's starting to get involved in every country's internal disputes everywhere, which is not to say there isn't a role for human relief agencies or humane relief -- humanitarian relief all around the globe for the united states in certain

circumstances. but, i mean, if we're getting involved in syria, if we're getting involved in libya, if we're getting involved in places that do not present clear and present threats to the united states, we're -- you know, we're not long for this world. host: another new development, this is from the associated press based on a front-page story of the state-run syrian newspaper, as president assad calling it -- quote -- "the start of historic american retreat." guest: yeah, well, this is -- they're going to play it that way. and it is -- you know, again, i mean -- you know, this is a -- you know, if you write on the blogs as i do and at reason.com and reason tv, i also have a columnist for "the daily beast" at the dailybeast.com. but if you blog, one of the basic rules is you don't punch down. if the united states is such a sensitive nation that, you know, under bill clinton it was worried about raul cedras and

haiti making sharp remarks about, you know, the devil to the north or somebody like hugo chavez. and if we're worried about what assad's personal opinion is of the united states as a superpower, we're looking in the wrong direction. we do not understand our role in the world, i think. host: but is the president damned either way. he would be criticized for not getting congressional approval. now he's being criticized for delaying this. guest: yes. one of the things is we can't look at these things in isolation and say okay, this decision is good or bad, this decision is good or bad. this is a long chain of problems and obama inherited the mantle and the majesty and the authority of the white house. and, you know, part of the problem, he even as a senator was arguing against the types of things he was doing as a president and that matters and that informs things. and i think that he, by declaring a red line, he clearly did that as a kind of ad-lib, nobody in the administration, nobody in the foreign -- in

foreign policy or -- or in the defense department could have advised him to do that, where you basically make an ultimatum, unless you're absolutely ready to back it up. and we clearly were not. so if -- if obama is damned either way, it's his own damn fault. host: die reason joining us from virginia beach, virginia. independent line with nick gillespie. good morning. caller: good morning, steve. yes, general wesley clark did a talk on the project on the american century. this is a neocon jewish group. and their goal, the talk, he said this -- he had a talk with rumsfeld and he said to overthrow seven countries in five years. iraq, libya, syria, iran, venezuela, and north korea and the sudan. i think obama is stuck because

when it came to syria, it took him more than two years, and it doesn't look like they're going to be able to over -- overthrow syria that easy. so obama has pushed the panic button and he has -- he has to do something because this group, this jewish neocon group, they have a lot of pressure on obama. host: thanks for the call. let me follow up on his point and share with you the comment by bill crystal, who joined a number of other so-called neoc neocons to the president in a letter urging action with regard in syria. and today bill crystal, the editor of "the weekly standard," writes on those of us who believe that the u.s. must act and must act decisively in syria and beyond have a twofold task. we need to persuade the countryy and congress to pass a

resolution authorizing the use of thors. force. and we need to persuade the administration to take strong and decisive action. both may be difficult. but as churchill once wrote, difficulties mastered are difficulties well won." guest: i'm friendly with bill crystal. he's no winston churchill. he has zero wins in his column. when i think of the foreign policy mastery which comes out of "the weekly standard," which was an instrumental mouthpiece for the bush administration and before that they were calling for intervention throughout the balkans. i mean, they have never in their short existence, they have never met a war that they didn't like. he reminds me of a baseball manager like gene malk, the legendary baseball manager who had a career average winning percentage that was under .500 yet he kept getting hired by the next team. bill crystal has no -- you know, for all of his plaudits and things like that, he has no credibility on foreign policy. every decision that he has

pushed and urged on america, including before 9/11, to start getting really antagonistic militarily with china, has been wrong. and it's about time that we stop paying that much attention to a kind of perspective on military action that coming out of "the weekly standard." host: charles krauthammer saying that the president and white house, it's amateur hour with this announcement yesterday. gs guest yoguest: you know, i'me what charles krauthammer can point to saying look, i should we should go into iraq and afghanistan and that's a great thing. you know, war -- people who are interested in going to war are always in favor of war. what they -- and then they always criticize when war doesn't go well. the fact of the matter is, is we need a better understanding of what went wrong in iraq in two ways. one was clearly the actual administration of the occupation was completely disastrous and that was truly amateur hour under the bush administration. but then also the conception of actually even going into iraq

and going into afghanistan in a way where we went with the pottery barn kind of method, that if we broke it, we had to rebuild it. these are people who i'm afraid simply, you know, pundits every once in awhile should be held accountable for their past recommendations and these guys have a track record that is god-awful. host: a political question on the twitter page asking, how much of what we are seeing now in the middle east is linked to the failed agenda of hillary clinton? guest: that's a fair question. hillary clinton, as you'll recall in the 2008 primaries, the democratic primaries, it was largely between her and barack obama after a short period of time, and other people were shaken out of the mix, she was the pro-war candidate. obama, who never really was antiwar but he was seen and allowed himself to be seen as the antiwar candidate. hillary clinton, like bill clinton, very interested in massive projection of american force throughout the world using weapons, using -- dispatching

troops and what-not. i think this will be a serious issue for hillary clinton if she runs in 2016. at least some of the leading republican candidates for the presidential nomination first and foremost among them rand paul has staked out a very different position towards foreign policy which is sometimes mischaracterized as being isolationist. in fact, in a speech that he gave at the heritage foundation, of all places, he laid out a strategy for engagement with trouble spots in the world that included cultural engagement, economic engagement, at times military engagement but was much more about figuring out a different way than just kind of going into countries and bombing them into the 21st century, which has not worked at all. host: in terms of what we can expect this week and next week, let me share with you this statement by the senate democratic leader, harry reid. he sent this out late yesterday. "i believe the uses of military

force against syria is both justified and necessary. the senate will engage in this critical debate right away, pointing out that the primary jurisdiction over this issue lies with the senate foreign relations committee. i've spoken to chairman menendez, also spoken to chairman feinstein and levin and they will convene both classified and unclassified briefings for senators throughout the next week, over which the obama administration will make key national security officials available." guest: that's great. so we'll look forward to, you know, james clapper coming and giving, you know, or keith alexander in giving the least untruthful truths that they can in front of our, you know, senate committees. again, you know, as a small "l" libertarian, i'm not a republican, i'm not a democrat. i do like to see politicians actually adhere to some kind of principle rather than partisan advantage. but harry reid is -- you know, he must be in the witness protection program as senate majority leader. this is a guy who has not

managed additio -- it took him r five years to get the senate to actually pass a budget. i don't think he has a lot of credibility when he's, you know, snapping people into action very much. host: more from the president yesterday as he talked about the international community and what's next in syria, calling on congressional approval before any military action and also the role or lack thereof of the u.s. [video clip] >> i'm confident in the case our government has made without waiting for u.n. inspectors. i'm comfortable going forward without the approval of a united nations security council that so far has been completely paralyzed and unwilling to hold assad accountable. as a consequence, many people have advised against taking this decision to congress and undoubtedly they were impacted by what we saw happen in the united kingdom this week when the parliament of our closest ally failed to pass a resolution with a similar goal. even as the prime minister supported taking action.

host: nick gillespie, the president tried to thread the medal in both domestically and with regard to foreign policy, but this question, at least 1, 1,400 people according to the secretary of state were gassed by chemical weapons. if we don't have an obligation to react to this, who would? guest: again, i mean, i think there are -- you know, there are things that the international community can do. and first and foremost, this is a -- host: but they're not doing. guest: i understand. but then it is a tragedy, it is something that is not to be, you know, applauded in any way, shape, or form, but we need to get past the idea that the united states is somehow responsible for every crime that happens in the world or that we need to intervene in every civil war, particularly in regions where things are -- get very complicated very quickly, where we have a lot of allies and we have a lot of enemies that will come out of this in a different way. the idea that using chemical weapons on, you know, 1.5% of the total casualties in a civil

war triggers american involvement independent of getting anybody else in the world community onboard to make a statement about a particular type of weapon used within -- solely within the borders of a foreign country, that strikes me as problematic. and we can -- we can say, oh, my god, you know, we would never want this to happen to our kids. this is something qualitatively differently -- different than just shooting those kids in the back of the head or shooting innocent civilians in the back of the head. but the fact is, is we have to move past a kind of -- you know, a categorization of chemical weapons that stems from world war i. i mean, it's time that we think differently about how we are going to interface with the world. host: joes that had point, praising your comments this morning. "you've blown their mind. good job." guest: i think joe probably had a late night last night and didn't get a lot of sleep. host: good morning, pat is joining us from michigan. republican line. caller: hi. i feel that the politicalization

of the -- the politicians, maybe they shouldn't be called politicians but are servants in washington, has made us very unsafe and i'm very concerned that it's kind of like nero fiddling while rome burned. what do you suggest would be a reasonable fix to that? should they come home to their districts, live here and go to washington and visit and do, you know, their business a little bit so they're not so available to everybody's ear but their constituents? and do you have any solutions so that i might feel safer in -- in our environment now, in the world's environment, and, you know, what they're doing regarding foreign policy? host: thank you, patricia. guest: maybe this is somewhat glib, but i understand that we're going to be opening up some beds in guantanamo bay. maybe congress could start convening in camp x-ray instead of washington, d.c.

more to the point, and i don't think that there's a reason for us to feel less safe than we d did, you know, five years ago or what-not, the fact of the matter is, is that most foreign policy issues have to do with -- with -- you don't have to be a huge advocate of the idea of blowback, but american foreign policy is an issue that needs to be -- it needs to be decided more. the world is not coming to -- you know, the world is not coming to bomb america, you know, just for bombing america and what-not. we need to rethink things. i think in terms of changing the dynamics in congress -- and i think it's important not to separate foreign policy and domestic policy, but what is a positive thing is that more and more americans -- this is part of the book that i cowrote with my colleague, matt we will. welch, since 1970, fewer and pure people identify as either republican or democrat. we have a plurality of people

who consider themselves independent. voters need to shake themselves free of easy tribal aaffiliation with one party or the other where their votes get taken for granted. and i think it's always a good sign when you see candidates being primaried in their own districts, including, and that's happening again here, where several high- -- you know, well-known senators are being primaried, either by tea party candidates or other people. that's always a good sign. host: there is this from gary who says, "it is not our problem. let's get that into people's heads. time for america to look forward and fix our own problems. enough is enough." and senator rand paul says, "the war in syria has no clear national security connection to the u.s. and victory by either side will not necessarily bring into power people friendly to the u.s." guest: well, yeah, i mean, this is another issue. and i agree with rand paul and his statement there. particularly the idea that, you know, just a couple weeks ago we were talking -- everybody was talking in washington about oh,

well, we don't really know who the insurgents are, who the rebels are. there's a strong sense that they have been pervaded by al qaeda elements or other types of people. we have seen in egypt, we have seen in libya, we have seen in other arab spring countries that the regime that comes up is not necessarily friendly to the united states. i don't think that's the mark of a legitimate regime, that they are pliant to american interests. but neither should we feel somehow responsible for bringing change to every aspect of the globe through military power. you know, and this is -- you know, i mean, it's hard to disentangle this from the iraq adventure, misadventure. had we tried to engage the arab world more broadly and the middle east, including places like iran, differently before we invaded iraq, i think we'd be looking at a very different middle east now. we made a huge mistake, in my estimation, by de-emphasizing democratic reform elements in iran before we invaded iraq,

which was widely reported at the time. i mean, you know, iran was -- the administration there was getting a huge amount of popular uprising against it. we could have aided that in ways that would have been much more transformative of the islamic middle east than going in and kind of going into iraq and having a totally muddled and ultimately unsuccessful occupation. host: our conversation with nick gillespie, editor in chief of reason.com. i want to share with you just a moment what john mccain said last week on the fox news channel. joe wanted to follow up on your earlier comment. he was praising your work this morning. thanks for taking my comment. yes, it's been a short night. it's 5:30 a.m. here. thanks very much. carl is our last call, though, from chicago, democrats line. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. how are you doing,. >> stevesteve in goodmorning, n. i sat here and i've listened to you, you know, very patiently. first off, i wanted to say to you, i disagree.

president obama is probably one of the most prudent and deliberative presidents we've had in quite some time. yesterday i listened to most of the criticism of -- of his press conference -- not press conference but his statement yesterday about syria, and most of the criticism seemed to fall in the category of, well, people are not liking the process. well, he didn't do it a year ago, he didn't do this, just basically the process. what i want to pose to you, nick, is this, and this is a very -- gets to the very bottom-line question. morally as humans, can we say that, well, it's an immoral act to use things such as chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons on other human beings? and if we have an opportunity to -- not that we can do it every time but is it possible for

someone to, well, to respond to that, are you telling me that that's wrong? host: we'll get a response. thank you, carl. guest: no. and this is an interesting question and i think it's a -- it's a meaningful one and it also extends to things like genocide. and genocide, you know, overwhelmingly when it's perpetrated is actually not done through kind of high-tech weapons, it's -- we saw that in rwanda not too long ago. i do think that there is an outpouring of feeling in that there are ways that the world can act to constrain horrible acts. i do not personally think that the use of chemical weapons is qualitatively different than the use of conventional weapons. so in that case, i don't think so. and i also think that's true of nuclear war as well. i mean, we need to think about, you know, what are the goals that we're trying to get at? it's about living in peace and toleration. it doesn't mean everybody gets along perfectly but that we get along as peacefully as possible. and that does not necessarily mean going in every time. chemical weapons are suspected

of being used. and -- and in very unclear situations. i think it's much more to the point that the united states as a uni power, as the largest superpower in the world or possibly the only superpower, we need to be engaging the world and creating a more humanitarian world first and foremost through trade and diplomacy. and i would love to see the united states open itself up to refugees from countries. you know, the best way that you can destroy tyrants is by bleeding their country not of -- not through flesh wounds but by letting more and more people escape there and come to the united states. host: let me get your reaction i said earlier from senator john mccain who appeared on the fox news channel. this is. >> lachinathis is as week in ad. but to your earlier point, just who are these rebels, who are we fighting against and who potentially could take over if president assad is toppled. [video clip] >> the opponents of taking any action in syria, despite the fact 100,000 people have been

massacred, a million children refugees, are saying that if we help the syrian free army, that that will be helping al qaeda. that is a lie. that is not true. we have a viable free syrian army commanded by generals. they are operating on their own. they are still a majority. and to say that it would be al qaeda influenced is not true. and we can get -- and i found out today that not one weapon has gone to the free syrian army from the united states. it has from some other countries in the region but not from the united states. that's shameful. host: your reaction. guess guess i thinguest: i thins wrong. i don't think there's any way we can guarantee the force we want, the faction we want will be ascendant and triumphant in a post attack on syria. and, you know, this is a guy who went to syria very quickly and

posed with a bunch of people who were widely reported to have been, you know, freedom fighters in syria who had attacked, you know, nonviolent religious pilgrims in iraq. so i don't think that john mccain -- and i -- you know, this is hard to say because, you know, i'm not anti-american and i'm not antigovernment per se, but we are left now where we're dealing with people like john mccain, we're dealing with people left over from the bush administration, barack obama, who has -- who has lied an and dissembled to the country time and time again, we're supposed to trust these people in d.c. even though they have time and again either been wrong or withheld information from us. and they only get forced into it when something like edward snowden happens or something like wiki leaks happens. and, you know, so the credibility of the government is not -- you know, it's at record lows. we haven't seen this kind of pushback against belief in the government really since the end of the vietnam era and sort of

the nixon kind of m miasthma ovr the body politic. these guys need to work harder to win trust before they expect anybody to take anything on faith from washington. in a way, it's a deplorable development but a welcome one once they recognize that their credibility is shot not because people in america are self self-absorbed but because we're actually intelligent and tired of kind of being lied and dissembled to. host: the book is called "the declaration of independence: how libertarian politics can fix america." go to reason.com or check him out as it is editor in chief of reason tv. thanks very much for being with us. guest: thanks very much. always a pleasure. host: you can continue to share your comments on our facebook page, facebook.com/cspan. here's what some of you are saying. tom says "congress should not authorize this. i agree with the comments that the arab league of nations should handle this."

joseph says, "if the g.o.p. votes against the dumbest progressive idea ever in the history of all time, you will make them look weak. okay, call me weak if that's how you feel." and pat walker, "my question is, if we're unwilling to move forward on this, what are we going to do when iran finally detonates a nuke?" again, more of your comments on-line at facebook. up next, gordon adams is going to be joining us. he's now a professor at american university. he's also a former staffer with the national security agency and advisor to president clinton. and later amy smithson will join us as we look at exactly are chemical weapons and the impact they have on the middle east and elsewhere around the world, as the "washington journal" continues. it is sunday morning, september the 1st. we're back in a moment. ♪

there were no focus groups and data in the building of that ipad. it was all in here. >> what will this future bring? the discussion on the digital revolution is one of our

featured programs labor day on c-span. just before 12:30, mike mccurry and frank farenkoff discuss the future of presidential debailts. then at 1:30, a history and look ahead at the next digital revolution. and at 3:45, from the international festival of arts and ideas, a look at race in america 2050. >> there are several types of bullying that the left loves to engage in. their favorite is racial bullying. they love it. the reason for that is that the left's philosophy is based almost solely and completely at this point on the idea that they stand up for victimized groups. everything they do is to stand up on behalf of some victimized minority. blacks, jews, gays, women. it doesn't matter. if you're a minority, they're standing up for you. what that means is that if we oppose their policies, by necessity, the logic is, we hate blacks, gays, jews and women. and that is sort of the philosophy that they trot out. >> the editor at large at

brightbart.com, ben shapiro, will take calls and comments for three hours live starting at 12:00 noon eastern. and civil rights leader, congressman john lewis, will be october's guest. biographer kitty kelly. and on january 5, radio talk show host mark levin. and book tv's book club returns in september with mark lebiowi lebiowicz book "this town." host: we welcome gordon adams, a professor at the american university here in washington, d.c., the school of international service, and spent five years in the clinton white house as the associate budget director for national security. thanks very much for being with us. guest: thank you for having me. host: headline from the l.a. atimes, the president seeking a vote on a syrian strike. and this morning, president

assad calling this a historic american retreat. guest: i would expect nothing less from president assad. and i expect, frankly, a lot from president obama. i actually think this was a very good decision. i think the president found himself alone in the consideration of launching an attack, alone internationally in terms of the u.n. security council being meaningless here and nato not supporting it, the arab league not supporting it. and he found himself alone domestically because there was a can calcacophony of noise aboutt the world should do under the circumstances, to take a step back to see if the nation is behind me first before i do this was i think a fairly clever move. host: you understand washington. the senate democratic leader announcing there will be hearings this week led by the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee. votes after september 9 in both the house and senate. what do you expect the debate to

focus on? guest: i expect the debate to be across the booshed. board. wheal really interestinboard. what's really interesting is that neither the congress nor the american people are unified on the views. 80% of the american people say we shouldn't mess ourselves in a syrian civil war. the congress, both parties are divided. fairly strong libertarian right-wing caucus in the republicans who are reluctant to throw american military power around in the middle east. a strong set of advocates like lindsey graham and john mccain, who link up with neo conservatives that want to go in and do more than the president's proposing doing. and democrats equally divided between people who want to support the president and the people who are very reluctant to have us yet again engaging in a major military action in the middle east. host: senator roy blunt called this an ston irk change of astof course. and ed royce, the chair of the house committee. he said "the administration's syria policy has been incoherent

and there are many unanswered questions. so i welcome the president's decision to seek congressional authorization for any use of military force and look forward to a vigorous debate on this critical issue. any proposed u.s. military response to the syrian regime's use of chemical weapons demands a thorough and deliberate consideration." gfrom the chair of the house foreign affairs committee. guest: yes. and we're going to hear more of that kind of thing. some folks are quite deliberative and want to talk about it very seriously. i think for the president, this is a very smart political calculus. some have described it as a statement about his weakness, about his inability to lead. we have a lot of reasons for wanting to undermine the president on this. but i think, frankly, what the president has said is i take it to the congress. if the congress supports me, my hand in doing this is strengthened. if the congress defeats it, the congress owns responsibility for their not being an american response. so i think he's calling congressional bluff on this and we'll see where it comes out. but it's not a stupid decision.

host: here's along those lines what the president said and what he told -- is going to tell members of congress. [video clip] >> here's my question for every member of congress and every member of the global community. what message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price? what's the purpose of the international system that we built if a prohibition on the use of chemical weapons, that has been agreed to by the government of 98% of the world's people, and approved overwhelmingly by the congress of the united states, is not enforced? make no mistake, this has implications beyond chemical warfare. if we won't enforce accountability in the face of this heinous act, what does it say about our resolve to stand up to others who flout fundamental international rules? to governments who would choose to build nuclear arms?

to terrorists who would spread biological weapons? to armies who carry out genocide? host: and yet the president also seemed to indicate that even if congress doesn't go along with this vote, he would still act. guest: it's not clear whether he would or would not. my sense is if congress said no, the president is not going to carry this out unilaterally. i think that's, you know, the most likely response. presidents have over time decided either to seek congressional support or not to seek congressional support and move ahead. in fact, even this president, the libyan case, refused to go to the congress and simply allowed the united states to participate in the libyan exercise. so he's going to use his judgment but my guess is if congress says no, the president's not going to go. host: the bbc reporting that the delay could embolden syrian president assad. could it? guest: absolutely. do you think anything would not embolden syrian president assad? the bottom line here -- and this

is really -- the real problem with this decision is that president assad is going to do what president assad is going to do. and the american ability to influence his thinking is quite limited here. the president has chosen to emphasize one piece of policy that's very important to him, which is nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. so this is something he's worried about with biological weapons, something he's worried about a lot with respect to nuclear weapons and now chemical weapons. this has been a light motif of his presidency since the very start. so in this case, the vector of decision for him, i believe, is in the area of nonproliferation. we must not let this red line be crossed. we must do something. the downside is that from president assad's point of view, he is going to do what he is going to do to hang on to power, whether that means a limited attack by the united states or a civil war in his own country or using chemical weapons against his people, what we have to understand in this situation is the american ability to impact events in this region is minim

minimal. these events in the region, including the civil war in syr syria, are being driven by events and -- and groups and religious fractions and national and regional political conflic conflicts, that the united states is not the master of. we will not shape this. the biggest downside of an attack by the united states in the middle of this is the uncertainty of the outcome in the region in terms of politics of the region. assad is not i think going to be particularly deterred one way or another. host: our guess is gordon adams, who is a professor of the school of international service at american university here in washington, d.c. spent five years at the clinton white house. is a graduate of stanford university. earned his master's and doctorate degree from columbia university. and the author or coauthor of a number of books, including "the iron triangle: the politics of defense contracting." and "mission creep: the militarization of u.s. foreign policy." craig is joining us from east

brookfield, massachusetts, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? i'd like to go back to 9/11 and -- and look at when that happened, how -- how hurt we were, how surprised and floored by the -- by the military power that was -- that was brought against us with such little effort and how we all came together, the president asked for prayers, people came together. we seem to be united on her -- how we wanted to take on this enemy together and how little by little, slowly how it became one party against another and then it became, when are we going to get out, how are we going to -- how are we going to fight this war? you know, we need a date. and then it just became political theater and a way for each party to hurt the other, especially the democrats to hurt the republicans.

host: thanks for the call. guest: that points basically to my fundamental belief here which is that the politics and conflicts that are happening in the middle eastern region are conflicts in which the united states has relatively little capacity to have an impact. we would not be in any position to send troops back into iraq in order to stop what's going on in iraq. our invasion and rather sloppy implementation of post-invasion occupation and reconstruction operations has left that particular country exposed to

severe ethnic and religious conflicts that have become murderous and political. our capacity to influence those outcomes now is quite limited. it is the same kind of ethnic and religious conflict that's going on in syria today. our ability, our voice is quite limited. and the real downside, the real risk of launching an attack by cruise missiles, for example, into the region is that at this point, over 70 or 80 years of history, american policy in the middle eastern region has allied itself with forces that are now losing the battle in the battle of history. and so our ability to have an impact in the region is almost counterproductive. any american military action in this region today is going to increase the level of anti-americanism in the region. there's almost no exception to that across the region, whether it's egypt, syria, saudi arabia or iraq. no matter what country you're in today, launching a military action by the united states is

simply a repetition of 70 or 80 years worth of history that now is on losing side of history in that region. we don't know where history is going to go. we don't know what the outcome is going to be of these massive religious, ethnic and sectarian conflicts but our ability to channel them or shape them is extraordinarily limited. host: a couple of headlines courtesy of the newseum. the president turns to congress on the issue of syria. the denver sunday post has this headline, "an about-face on syria. the president says he asking for congress to vote on the action." the "atlanta journal constitution" asks congress to get a say on the syrian question. and one other headline from the boston sunday globe, obama seeks congressional approval for an okay on syria. this is from one of our viewers saying, face it, the president played the cards he was dealt with correctly. this ultimately will be decided by the do-nothing congress. guest: i don't know if it will

be decided bo by the do-nothing congress. and in it instance, i don't know if the president will do nothing. what the president has done is opened an opportunity for congress to have a say. it's not the first time that a president has asked congress for this kind of authorization. the -- president bush asked -- president bush one asked for it with respect to gulf war one. president george w. bush asked for it with respect to gulf war two. it's also not unusual for a president not to ask for permission. ronald reagan didn't ask for permission when he went into grenada. president obama didn't ask for permission when he went into libya. presidents have always had an imif ambivalent relationship with the congress when it comes to asking for their authorization on go to war. and although we have congressional authority to declare war, we haven't used it since the second world war. so virtually every military action we've had has been without a declaration of war. at that point, the powers and authorities are ambivalent and ambiguous. some presidents ask.

some presidents don't ask. and in this case, the same president does both things -- doesn't ask one time, does ask another time. what it tells us is decisions about going to war and, in fact, about much of foreign policy, are political decisions. they have domestic consequences. you can't do them without having domestic support. and in this case, it's not clear that the president will have domestic support. host: gordon adams, who worked in the clinton white house, now professor at american university here in washington. freddie from oakland, california. good morning. caller: good morning. i've been watching the show a whole lot, maybe like ten years, and one thing i have not notic noticed, the american people have been truly dumbed down. we have a lot of sympathy for israel. i'm not hearing anything much about israel. if people would stop and do their history, we would look and see that the people that's running israel came from poland and russia. they're not the indigenous israelites.

so israel have everything to gain. we -- they're not threatening us. they're probably threatening israel because israel's taking their property, their land and trying to run the middle east. let's look back. let's have some segments on who the true jews are. they own your judicial system, your financial system, your news media and everything else. they're 1% of our population but they're running the world. and we're not waking up to them. host: your point is what? caller: my point is that this is all behind israel and taking over the middle east. host: we'll get a response. guest: yeah, i don't agree with you for a minute about who owns what with respect to the media, finance system or any of that. i just think that's a myth. but what's the interesting question tucked into what you're saying is there's been a lot of silence from israel about its view on what's happening here. and i think that silence from the -- from the israeli government reflects an ambivalence that is

understandable. from the israeli point of view, having security around its borders is an important benefit. egypt is uncertain. jordan frequently troubled now, with a lot of syrian refugees. lebanon on its northern border. hezbollah, influence rising, rocket attacks into israel. and syria has been a, if you will, a -- an island of stability in israel's regional relationship with assad in the presidency. so from one point of view, the israelis might be happier to have assad stay there and have syria be stable but we're past that point. from the other point of view, for the israelis, assad leaving in syria at least opens the door to an iranian loss in the region because assad's been an ally of iran. if that were to happen from the israeli point of view, the uncertainty about the political outcome in syria might be youth weigheoutweighed by the new reg.

so i'm kind of not surprised that the israelis have been quiet and putting on their gas masks. host: a couple of developments courtesy of the associated press. this morning, the israeli prime minister, benjamin netanyahu, has told his cabinet that his country -- quote -- "is ready for any possible scenario." at the united nations in new york, the secretary-general expected to be briefed by the head of the chemical weapons team on exactly what they saw. in egypt, the arab league foreign minister scheduled to hold an emergency session in cairo to discuss the developments in syria. and with this photograph courtesy of the "new york times," the aircraft carrier, the abraham lin link lincoln ine ararian sea. there are five destroyers in the eastern mediterranean sea armed with dozens of tomahawk cruise missiles. they continue to stand by. and from france, the french president saying he will wait for the french parliament and u.s. congress to consider possible military action. on all of these fronts, your

thoughts. guest: what we're hearing and what we're seeing here is a disbursal of point of view and an uncertainty about direction and an uncertainty about implications of this kind of a strike. the israeli position is very consistent with what i was saying. we're ready for anything. we're not taking an opinion on this. in the united nations, the president clearly does not have the support of the security council.

caller: i said, i wish the spaceman would come down and say they are coming back to take over this planet. time in therst planet's history that humanity might unite and not kill each other. since man became part of this planet, he's been attacking each other. host: thanks for the call. i would love for you to take some concern into the region. i read that over the next 20, 30 years we're going to see a lot of dust in the air in this region before the dust settles. -- the brits, americans, japanese, chinese -- will be holding hands in the circle around this region for a while, because the conflicts in

the region are by and large indigenous to the region. the countries that have historically played a role in so inegion have all done ways that helped create dictatorial regimes, very difficult politics, arbitrary borderlines between nations, tribes and groups and ethnicities and religions. we have a cultural challenge that is internal to this region now. a political challenge internal to this region. the capacity under which the russians, the americans can come , shape in this language events, our capacity is quite limited. a military intrusion that might be done for the best of all could bounceons

back, blowback, and be seen in the region as yet another launch of american military power in the islamic world. there is a serious downside in terms of our ability to relate to this region of the world. host: secretary of state john kerry is making the rounds, appearing on "face the nation" and "state of the union." vote by congress is not expected, and that america's overall security is at stake. i always worry when presidents and administrations think their credibility is at stake. credibility is very hard to measure. thewe more credible in region by launching a military attack, or less credible because we launched a military attack?

with whom are we more credible? measuring credibility is always dicey. photographs. seen secretary of state kerry --icating that there in chemical weapons were used. deny thatody would what we saw on the internet and youtube was devastatingly horrible, and a criminal act likely to have been executed by the president of syria and his military forces. i have no doubt that is true. himself innt got some trouble with this response, where he drew a red line. that put him in a box.

the minute bashar al-assad use these weapons, he was forced into the box where he had to act or not act. that raised the issue for him of his credibility. weapons of mass destruction are a high priority for this president. he put himself in a box when he drew the line. now bashar al-assad has called his bluff. we are in the bluffing end of the game. what we have to think about is, what are the long-term implications of a military strike? are they likely to be positive? will they change the situation? they likely to diminish american credibility internationally because they struck militarily? and from some people's point of view, and effectively. you have tens of thousands

of these refugees, hundreds of thousands across the border in jordan and turkey and egypt and elsewhere. guest: you have a massive outflow of population. we saw that in iraq. it pushed millions of iraqis out, waiting to see how events would unfold. any major civil war, use of siloed -- military force leads you to a massive refugee population. in turkey, a major influx of kurds refugees has destabilizing effects in turkey. in jordan, a relatively impoverished government is trying to cope with not only a large palestinian they asked brock, but now with a major syrian -- diaspora, but now with a major syrian disapora. this is a miserable situation,

and it's miserable outside the borders of syria itself. the real challenge the administration faces is, how do you create an international understanding? how do you facilitate national negotiation and syria that leads to an end to the violence? a relatively limited and point strike is not likely to weigh much in the balance in terms of seeking that solution. host: many of you weighing in on our facebook page. obama pulled a bill clinton political move, says israel tamang. from our twitter page, there is this comment.

stewart's joining us from great britain. good morning. i had to go back to what your current spokesman is saying about obama being in a box. i have been watching what is happening in british parliament all this week. do you think that obama is going into this expecting he's going to lose, and is getting himself on the hook that he doesn't want to be on? despite the complexity of everything you have been describing, this has become a simple political problem for obama, and his way of dealing with it is, if i go to the house i know i could not get them to agree because they -- against almost

anything i want? guest: very good question. you could describe this as a win-win or win-draw for the president. to view a president's decision about foreign policy in the congress as just being a politician does not quite understand the nature of foreign policy or politics. all presidents are politicians. policy isl of foreign actually domestic politics. hesident obama has faced -- has faced a fractious congress for the entirety of his presidency, including a substantial minority who would like to see him impeached our out of office -- or out of office. is a president who has been besieged by a do-nothing congress.

he has done clever jujitsu politically, saying to congress, put up or shut up. host: trevor from new york city. talking about these calls from the u.k. -- don't you think the turnaround by president obama and asking for congressional approval is simply because dave cameron lifted the said, take my advice and have the people's input before doing anything? guest: absolutely. i was not inside the white house doubler -- to liberations -- deliberations, but i have no doubt that the vote in the house of commons was very influential , tohe president's decision a decision to ask the congress to provide him with that authority. is very much alone in

this decision. the un security council, nato, the arab league is not with him. only the french internationally said they would support a unilateral strike. domestically, he was alone. he had not build political support for this decision. the vote in the commons was critical. the president's decision was heavily influenced by that vote, and the need to find some support, someone who would have his back on his decision. host: henry chu reporting from london that the president's decision to seek congressional approval could bring another vote in the house of commons. guest: it is likely. i understand that they will come back next week and revisit this. now they want to see what the house of representatives and senate do.

is a headline that made a lot of news last week, the reporting of bart gelman, the release of what is called the black budget, details of war in cyberspace. is writing about this inside the "washington post." he says, one conclusion that emerges from the revelation of thatecret black budget is the u.s. does not have many secrets anymore. guest: the "washington post" probably had a lot of discussions about this.

the details here are the kind of thing that people would have celebrated to have 10 or 15 or 20 years ago. they are now out there in the public. what is really interesting is the amount of damage that this has done to the u.s. is extraordinarily minimal. you have not heard people screaming about it. has the rightus point. , with anternet age generation of people who don't ,elieve secrets are important we are living in a totally different age from the mental thoughts of those who are responsible for the security system in the u.s. government. they don't know how to deal with the reality that these are all becoming well-known facts. host: he concludes with this point. the beneficiaries and in no secrets world will be relatively

open societies. guest: the issue here is not at snowden -- ed snowden. the issue is having that debate about how open a society we are, about what the government can do, what they can look at, how broadly they can intrude, and what the limitations, rules, and controls need to be on this information. we have over classified stuff for decades. we are declassifying by stealth as we go along with people who are whistleblowers. it will be a very important debate over the next year or two what the constraints are of the .atriot act and pfizer court we are watching a big change happen.

host: deborah joining us on the independent line from florida. adams, professor at the school of international service. caller: good morning. when theike to know u.s. became the kgb of the world. why do we need to take on all the problems of the middle east when there is no way we can resolve their religious issues? a $640 billion question. over the 30 or 40 years i have spent in the national security establishment, we've always had a rhetoric internally and even with the public dominated by the view that we were the indispensable nation, the one country that everyone relied on to bring order out of chaos, maintain stability, prevent

anarchy around the world. it has been a miss to us for a long time, but we have global capabilities. the u.s. has a global military. we can fly and deploy everywhere, sale everywhere. we have bases everywhere. intelligence of a kind that no other country finds imaginable. for all of that capability, we cannot shape events in every region of the world. making choices is what being president is all about. this is one of the areas where the president is struggling with a choice and limited ability to affect the outcome of events that are historic in the middle east and beyond our control. host: a follow-up from mike, who sent us an e-mail. why is nobody talking about building a wartime's kreis -- war crimes case against the syrian regime members?

that: i have no doubts people are working on what it would like to bring war crimes cases against bashar al-assad. we have done it with historic cases of war crimes in the balkans, africa. i have no doubt that the international criminal court and administration are taking a look at it. host: patrick, good morning, on our democrat's line. we have aagree that do-nothing congress. i think they will do nothing with regard to any kind of action towards syria. i think that is a big mistake. we have to show that we are the leaders of the free world. we stand up for societies that need our help. something should be done. that obama exercises the

war crimes thing and does something anyway. we need to do something. guest: it is a good question. they may surprise you in congress. there are a lot of people who would like to support the president. you can bet there's going to be aboutggle on the hill this resolution. my guess is that at the end of the day they probably pass something. it could be that it doesn't work. presidents have tried this. it squeaked through the senate in terms of gulf war one. in the end, the hill will probably see its way to some kind of an answer. the bigger question for leadership is, leadership involves choice making, weighing interests, and restraint.

the hardest thing for the american people to put up with is restraint in the white house. backnstinct is to strike and do it now, do something. restraintlear where is the better choice. us.: thank you for joining professor at american university and veteran of the clinton white house. some news on this sunday morning, the passing of sir david france. his work, his interviews available on our website at www.c-span.org. frostusa today," david dies. he won fame around the world for his interview with president nixon. a heartost died of attack yesterday. he was on board the queen

elizabeth cruise ship, where he was due to give a speech. the cruise company saying the vessel had left southampton yesterday morning for a 10 day cruise in the mediterranean. hisd cameron quick to send condolences to david frost and his family. my heart goes out to the frost family. he could be and certainly was with me a fierce interviewer and friend. when we come back, we turn our attention to the issue of chemical weapons and what kind of impact they have around the world. what are some of the chemical weapons used? will be joining us from the center for nonproliferation studies grad. a look at some of the other sunday programs first. syria dominating the discussions. good morning, nancy.

>> the focus of the sunday shows is syria. you can hear rebroadcasts of the programs beginning at noon eastern time with "meet the press." include secretary of state john kerry, who appears on all of the shows today. bob menendez, chairman of the foreign relations committee and republican committee member senator rand paul. kerryweek" with secretary and james cartwright. valley noster, dean of the john hopkins school of advanced international studies. democratic senator jack reed of rhode island, and congressman peter king. followste of the union" . an appearance with secretary

, scottnd eliot angle murphy, members of the senate foreign relations committee. at 4:00 p.m., "face the nation" -- saxby chambliss. on sunday network tv shows c-span radio are brought to you as a public service by the networks and c-span. noonadcasts begin at eastern with an bc's "meet the press." fox news sunday, and "facethe union," the nation" on cbs. xmten across the country on satellite radio channel 119. download our free app for your smart phone or listen online at www.c-span.org. >> we picture june cleaver with

a vacuum cleaner or in the kitchen, frying bacon for breakfast. that image does obscure one of the most important trends in the 1950's, which was american women's labor force participation increased. american women workers not only did not go home after world war ii, but they increasingly entered the labor market across the 1950's. >> a history of women in the workplace in the years following world war ii. of "american days history tv" this labor day weekend. is a seniorithson fellow at the center for nonproliferation studies. thank you for being with us.

i want to talk about the history and use of chemical weapons. secretary of state john kerry on the sunday morning programs, use.rming the guest: it is a nerve agent. it was discovered in the world , along with other agents. if i had a jar, theoretically, a million lethal doses could sit inside that jar. it is breathed into the respiratory system or it gets onto the skin. it is a very small quantity needed to kill a human. host: who produces this? wast: in this case, it

probably the syrian government. the history of the chemical weapons program -- at first they leaned on outside assistance. they probably got hand-me-down weapons from the 1970's from egypt -- in the 1970's from egypt. chemical weapons, most likely from iran and russia. they have a capability at this point not only to produce nerve agents, but the world war i agents called mustard gas. i know you are familiar with the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons. this agreement that prohibits the development, of chemical weapons by states parties. what is the teeth behind this? 188 countriesre

that are members of this treaty. syria is not. but it is a member of the geneva protocol am a which dates from protocol, which dates from world war i. comesher teeth is that it with a very complex and effective system of inspections. thisu are a party to treaty, not only are your military facilities open to , but your commercial chemical industry is open to inspection. these inspections have been taking place since 1997 around the world. literally hundreds of inspections have taken place. the other part of this treaty that is equal for all countries are that it requires any country that has chemical weapons to to have theirnd

destruction supervised. russia and the u.s. are among a handful of countries that declared chemical weapons productionsnd facilities. destructionions -- process is still ongoing because we had such a huge stockpile. host: 189 countries signed this agreement. can you explain the fact that they did not ratify it? guest: the security politics are complicated, in part because of isreal's presumed nuclear weapons -- israel's presumed nuclear weapons program.

a number of arab countries did sign the treaty and ratify and join the agreement. egypt still holds out, as does syria. aey are presumed to have chemical weapons convention, and they acquired that thinking they could offset egypt's nuclear -- excuse me, israel's nuclear capability. host: how does that play out, for israel's role? the security aspects of this -- chemical weapons are no match for nuclear weapons. it is something of an awkward situation. it would ideally be part of a weapons of mass destruction discussion. haveolitics in the area countries like egypt and others that are balking at coming to

the table because of israel's nuclear arsenal. byt: in the announcement john kerry, 1400 deaths as a result of the weapons -- here is what he said friday at the state department. [video clip] >> instead of being tucked safely at their beds at home, we saw a rose of children -- rowsw of -- rows of children lying side-by-side. all of them dead from assad's parents andded by grandparents who suffered the same fate. the u.s. government now knows 1429 syrians were killed and this attack, including at least 426 children -- in this attack, including at least 426 children. even the first responders who try to save them became victims themselves.

we saw them gasping for air, terrified that their own lives were in danger. indiscriminate, of chemicale horror weapons. this is what assad did to his own people. host: secretary kerry last week. this is a list of chemical attacks. this courtesy of npr. guest: let's separate those two examples you gave us. the one in japan was an attack

which had used sarin in a previous incident, trying to kill judges. they ended up killing seven people and sending several dozens to the hospital. attack in the tokyo subway system is the best known of those horrendous acts. there was panic in tokyo. people flooded the hospitals. not that many were seriously injured, but there were a lot of people who were scared by the attack. it's one thing to have a terrorist group get a hold of and use these weapons. the attack you referred to in the second example with iraq, the physicians for human rights send a team in four years later and they were taking samples at the site which were later analyzed by britain's top chemical biological defense

facility. they were able to conclusively prove that not only was mustard gas used in the attacks, but also nerve agents. ,ost: our guest is amy smithson senior fellow at the center for nonproliferation studies. of thea graduate university of north carolina and georgetown university. she earned her doctorate at george washington university. previously with the center for strategic and international studies. our phone lines are open. you can send us an e-mail or join us on facebook or send us a tweet. liz is joining us from new york city on the independent line. is, is thereestion wmd's?ture mark for

could we determine who actually did it? assad didsuming that it. it could have been the cia. and, a comment. guest: one of the things that told me this was likely to have been attacked by the assad government is the timing of the attack. that hashe government been in the business of chemical weapons since the 1970's. when you get into the chemical weapons area, you train in military and chemical doctrine. the best time to attack is in the wee hours of the morning.

winds areme when the the lowest and the temperatures are the coolest, and that is what makes poison gas hang over the target. it sits over there. in the middle of the day, the wind would blow it away. where theyituation had simultaneous rocket attacks on multiple targets. that is another hallmark of a military action. the rebels don't have that sophisticated of a capability. this is waddling and quacking like a duck. host: why would it -- he have to and it? -- done it? this happened at a time when the inspectors were in downtown damascus. what better time, if you were seeking to demoralize your opponent, than to attack their families while they are sleeping?

when you see the interviews of syrian refugees and syrians still inside the country, they are petrified that chemical warfare will be used again. assad succeeded beyond his wildest imagination in terms of scaring the opposition. deterrence, there is something i have been advocating since the outset of civil conflict in syria. masks and provide gas nerve agent antidotes and other defensive equipment to the hospitals in syria, and to the syrian civilians, and to syrian opposition fighters. 's troops already have this equipment and capability. about who hasoubt done it, you need to level the with defenses. that takes away the very advantage of using chemical weapons in the first place.

if the syrian civilians have gas masks, if they are taught about how to decontaminate -- they know how to do this, from the videos from the other night. they are stripping people down and washing them with water. for those who may doubt this is an effective thing to do, do -- prior to the 19 91 gulf war, when israel was worried that would lobsein israeli scuds on cities, they equipped their entire civilian populace with gas masks. the chemical weapons convention obligates its members to provide this very type of assistance. the international community and our own congress may be struggling with what should be done about this, but this is truly the no-brainer thing to do, to take the military advantage of using chemical weapons away. putin,nd yet vladimir

who will be with the president summit,k at the g-20 called the idea that president assad would use chemical weapons is, in his own words, utter nonsense. i'm not sure that russia's hands are entirely clean. in the 1990's, the people who were in charge of russia's chemical weapons program were providing technical assistance in chemical weapons to the russians. this is documented in "state secrets." why would i believe the author? he was inside russia's chemical weapons program for 26 years. he is also the man who blew the whistle on russia's ultrasecret program, which is the next generation of chemical warfare agents. the world, including western

agents knew nothing about it until he blew the whistle. he is a very authoritative person to tell the tale the russia provided. comment, gas masks will not help much against mustard gas or sarin. this is protection of the respiratory system. it's not a perfect solution, but it's difficult to expect civilians to wear the protective garb that the military has every day for the next however long this conflict lasts. let's not make perfect the enemy of the good. let's provide gas masks, with clear instructions and illustrations in arabic. let's provide instructions about the importance of the camera nation. literally, if you have to jump in a fountain in the circumstances. achievedbly will have

the happy medium of what can be anticipated in this type of environment, where there is a very real threat that chemical weapons will be used again. ago, nearly 90 years before world war ii, there was the geneva protocol signed in 1925 that prohibits the use of asphyxiating him a poisonous or other gases. we saw much of that in world war ii with the holocaust. cycllonycle and be -- to attempt was used to entirely eliminate a religious group. was is something that motivated by the widespread use of chemical weapons during world war i. chemical weapons were introduced

with industrial chemicals on the battlefield in 1915, when germany used chlorine. the allies retaliated. both sides were lobbing industrial chemicals, and till germany one-upped and introduced mustard gas. it sears the lungs, burns the skin. diedat conflict, 90,000 from chemical weapons. a million were injured from chemical weapons. the people who don't take this seriously should look at the historical record of that conflict. ,ost: our guest is amy smithson senior fellow at the center for nonproliferation studies. can join in on the conversation on our twitter page. michael from butler, pennsylvania on our republican line. amy, i agree with you

totally. what i would like to see is someone connect the dots. i am 100% convinced that the evidence is there that assad inherited saddam hussein's program. two days before the second gulf war, two magic trains went to syria syria from the program. this to me gets to the heart of the whole issue. we have two options. respond, not respond. what frightens me -- the caller went this way earlier, but i've heard several people mention this -- this belief that maybe the cia is doing this, there's no logic i can find where that makes any sense at all. how would you recommend that the administration respond to this fear on the ground that bad

actors in our own government are behind this? i think there are certain americans who distrust their government. but there are certain atrocities that i can't believe anyone would undertake. in this case, common sense points anyone who is looking at those dots uart talking about connecting will realize this is a chemical -- you are talking about connecting will realize this is a chemical --assad did not need hand-me-downs from iraq. he already had chemical weapons at the time of the 2003 war. he has his own chemical weapons production capability. a few production sites, as well as research and development sites. it first leaned on outside assistance, but no longer needs -- assad has his own reasons

he has gradually escalated the level of conventional violence. for the past several months, he's been testing the waters with smaller chemical weapons. he flagrantly cross the line on the night of the 21st. the rebels don't have the motivation that he does rea. i thought it was possible the rebels might have released an industrial toxic to michael to point the finger of suspicion at assad. the death toll exceeds anything that i think the rebels could logically be expected to have done here on the 21st. in terms of sheer, ruthless atrocity, it doesn't make sense. comment to your earlier

point. guest: this is true. in the iran-iraq war, there were 100,000 iranians injured by chemical weapons. 20,000 were killed. stillf those who survived suffer the after effects of exposure not only from mustard gas, but to nerve agents. drawhing i would like to your viewers' attention to is not to count out the inspectors in this case, the people who just left iraq. the secretary-general has been very clear in saying that their job is not to say who did this. during 12 reviews inspections by the secretary-general, there have been a number of occasions where they have been able to

rule out the use of chemical weapons. in iraq, they specifically said the iraqis used chemical weapons during the 1980's conflict against iran. host: you can continue the conversation at facebook.com/cspan. here are a couple of points. we are joined from plymouth, england. caller: good morning. i think that the u.s. and its close friends like the u.k. and nato have got to be more cautious in their approach to the middle east in general, and perhaps the wider international

community. i think we have come up against the real constraints of what can be achieved. actions mayoned make things worse. of the options are terribly attractive, with the exception of providing chemical defenses. if you bomb the chemical sites, you risk releasing toxic gases over nearby civilian populations. this is one of the reasons why the obama administration rule that out as too risky. creating a no-fly zone, that leaves assad with the delivery systems we used on the evening of the 21st, rockets and missiles. bombing other sites, that leaves assad with his chemical weapons. there are not that many attractive options militarily. -- aftermath of a conflict

as we have seen and iraq and afghanistan, it can be more difficult to resolve the aftermath than the war itself. host: there is this from one of our viewers, saying what about aboutcent information prince bandar? guest: they are a member of the chemical weapons convention, saudi arabia. i keep my ear close to the ground on those matters. i never heard a whisper from the hague that there has been -- saudiabout studies cooperation about inspectors coming down there. i'm not going to provide a whisper in the wind.

any idea how long syria has had chemical weapons? guest: they have been at this for quite a while. countries need technical assistance when they start on this road, but they have had plenty of that. they can stand on their own now. if that is the case, why hasn't the u.s. and the u.n. try to stop them in 40 years? guest: it is a difficult thing to do, especially if a country has a sophisticated chemical industry. the building blocks for the agents are industrial chemicals that have legitimate purposes. belong tountries that the treaty declare the production of those chemicals in significant quantities. those are the industry facilities that are subject to investigation to make sure those

agents are not being diverted or produced on-site for anything anything other than a legitimate reason. the chemical weapons convention sets of a number of barriers. group was started during the mid-1980's. the major chemical supplier countries realize that iran and iraq were selectively shopping for chemical weapons precursors. denied and export from one country, -- an export from one country, they went to another. theirtarted to coordinate export controls. the australia group has over 40 members. these are all the major supplier countries. syria has long been on the don't sell to list.

frank is joining us from orlando, florida. caller: good morning. the mainstream media is the only news we get here. if you do any research, there's other points of view on this of who created these attacks, but nobody will even bring it up. it's like it doesn't exist. any kind of discussion should have both sides, shouldn't it? theyiraq invaded iran, bought their chemical weapons from us. what makes us so high and mighty on all of this? m tip shellsuraniu and everything in iraq and

caused the cancer to our soldiers, i just don't get it. guest: frank, you do have a point. some chemical companies did funnel chemical weapons during theinto iraq 1980's. they funneled over 650 metric tons of chemical weapons precursors into that conflict. but in that case, the companies were violating u.s. law. and thesee of syria recent events, initially with a smaller scale incidents, i too have an open mind because it was difficult to tell whether it might have been a conventional bomb the landed next to an industrial facility and ruptured a tank and released something that had these effects. chemicals canrial

have the types of effects we are seeing in the videos. foaming atbreathing, the mouth, convulsions and the like. it was difficult to tell whether the assad government was testing the waters, or the rebels might have been doing something. in this last attack, it carried so many hallmarks of a military trained to use chemical weapons. that's not something that a coordinated group of rebels with pipe bombs have as an ability to do at this point, much less look at the motivation. use your common sense here and it will tell you what happened. host: a comment on our facebook page. is america going to get involved

every time some psycho dictator kills his own people? guest: i would like to see this norm up he -- upheld. i think we put ourselves in jeopardy around the world, so it's important to uphold the chemical weapons convention at geneva protocol to have some type of punitive measure against the assad government. if it is providing senses -- , these are decisions that can come in the days ahead. the international community ought to be able to agree on the lowest common denominator that can save lives. that is putting chemical defense into the equation. mail: an e-

guest: i don't forget about those things, nor has assad. two days ago, there were reports that he bombed a school with napalm. what errors the u.s. made in the past should not handicapped our decision-making now. clear aboute pretty the importance of upholding international laws that prohibit atrocities that occurred in the past and that are unfolding in front of our eyes, literally as we speak. host: that is what one of our viewers says.

good morning, dan. independent line. iraqr: you brought up how may have obtained some chemical weapons back in the 1980's and 1990's. specifically, you said the 1990's. companies from the u.s. supplied ingredients that could be used to make, which was against international law. i have a couple of questions. i would like you to hit this one first. how many of those companies were prosecuted for that illegal action? guest: i would like to give you a reference for this so that you can read for yourself. website, ae cnf study by jonathan tucker about trafficking chemical precursors into the 1980's iran-iraq war.

there were two masterminds that were funneling chemical precursors. one into iran, one into iraq. one of them was a dutch national. for 17sentenced to jail years. the two american companies, i believe they're both out of business now. andof them was in baltimore another was in charleston, north carolina. they funneled over 650,000 metric tons. host: our guest is a senior fellow at the center for nonproliferation studies. amy smithson, thank you for joining us. we will continue the conversation tomorrow morning on "washington journal." jeremy mayer will be joining us. he's a professor at george mason university with background on the war powers act. and the president of sciu.

that is all tomorrow morning on "washington journal." coming up next. thank you for joining us on this labor day weekend. we hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. have a great weekend. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> today on c-span, "newsmakers " with tom donohue. then remarks from richard trumka. deliversnet napolitano her farewell address.