Obama steps back from the brink: President reveals during TV offensive that he'd abandon military strikes on Syria if dictator handed over chemical weapons
- - 'We will pursue this diplomatic track,' Obama told Fox News
- - 'I haven't decided' what to do if Congress refuses to endorse military action, he told NBC
- - He would 'absolutely' call off a military strike, Obama said on ABC, if Bashar al-Assad were
to credibly give up his chemical weapons - - Talk of a Russsia-brokered deal is 'the continuation of conversations I've had with - -
President Putin for quite some time,' Obama told PBS - - Secretary of State John Kerry accidentally floated the idea of an agreement in London,
later saying he wasn't serious - - Russia's and Syria's foreign ministers both leaped into the opening, saying they would
support such an arrangement if it would prevent war - - The White House hosted at lest 70 members of Congress on Monday, arguing that the
threat of military force will keep Assad in negotiations
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President Barack Obama has revealed that has hasn't ruled out abandoning an attack on Syria, and that he has been secretly discussing a non-military resolution to the Syrian crisis with Russian President Vladimir Putin 'for quite some time.'
'We will pursue this diplomatic track,' Obama told Fox News anchor Chris Wallace. 'I fervently hope that this can be resolved in a non-military way.'
But 'it's fair to say that I haven't decided' what to do if Congress fails to authorize a military strike against the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, he conceded to NBC News' Savannah Guthrie.
While he said he was 'heartbroken' seeing videos of a suspected sarin gas attack's aftermath in Syria, the president admitted that 'I wouldn't say I'm confident' about the outcome on Capitol Hill.
But if Assad were to voluntarily give up his chemical weapons, would Obama call off the Pentagon?
'Absolutely,' he told ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer, 'if in fact that happens.'
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President Obama said Monday that he would prefer to find a diplomatic solution to the Syrian chemical weapons crisis
Obama's unprecedented cluster of sit-down TV interviews included chats with ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN Fox News and PBS -- all to be broadcast on the same evennig
'It's fair to say I haven't decided' whether to bomb Syria if Congress doesn't vote to authorize it, Obama told NBC's Savannah Guthrie when her turn came in the White House's Blue Room
'Let's see if we can come up with language that avoids a strike but accomplishes our key goals to make sure that these chemical weapons are not used.'
The comments came as part of an unprecedented series of sit-down television interviews Monday, in which Obama was expected to make the the case for military intervention in Syria but instead seemed to cleave to a softer approach.
Secretary of State John Kerry provided the president with an unlikely opening earlier on Monday in London, offering an off-hand answer to a reporter's question about what Assad might do to avert a U.S. military attack.
The Obama administration would not launch a military strike against Syria, Kerry said, if the dictator were to 'turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week.'
A White House official had told CNN that the episode was the result of a 'major goof' by Kerry, who had 'clearly gone off script.'
Still, Lavrov and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem leaped at the concept and quickly announced that they would be in favor of it. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney cautioned, however, that it might be a 'stalling tactic.'
Secretary of State John Kerry started the day's confusing series of events by suggesting that the U.s. would forgo an attack if Assad turned over his chemical weapons within a week
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (L) and his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Mouallem (R) both said they would push for a proposal that would turn Syria's chemical weapons over to international forces that would destroy them, but Kerry later said the idea he floated wasn't a serious one
Despite Kerry's backpedal, Obama told Fox News that he would 'welcome the possibility of the development. We should explore and exhaust all avenues of diplomatic resolution to this.'
WHAT ABOUT THE FIRST LADY?
Gwen Ifill of the PBS NewsHour and Savannah Guthrie of the NBC Nightly News both asked Presdient Obama what his wife thinks about attacking Syria.
He replied that the first lady opposes the idea.
'My own family members ... they're very wary and suspicious,' the president said during his PBS interview.
'If you ask Michelle, "Do we – do we want to be involved in another war?" The answer is no,' he added on NBC.
Most Americans share Michelle Obama's view, despite the White House's recent saber-rattling and the president's pursuit of congressional approval to attack Syria.
The Pew Research Center reported Monday that 63 per cent of American adults think the U.S. should not strike the Assad regime.
'We are going to be immediately talking to the Russians and looking for some actual language they might be proposing,' Obama added.
None of the three news anchors whose interviews aired first on Monday challenged the president with the fact that Kerry had later said that he wasn't presenting a serious proposal.
Obama explained during his NBC News interview that Russia's willingness to help its ally Syria negotiate a handover of its chemical weapons was 'a potentially positive development,' but also said the Reagan-era maxim 'trust but verify' would apply.
'We don't want just a stalling or delaying tactic to put off the pressure that we have on there right now,' he cautioned.
And when PBS NewsHour host Gwen Ifill asked the president if he had broached the subject of a Russia-brokered deal with Syria, he said, 'I did have those conversations. And this is the continuation of conversations I've had with President Putin for quite some time.'
While maintaining that Syria violated international norms and expressed a desire to see that 'the blatant use of chemical weapons that we saw' on August 21 in a Damascus suburb 'doesn't happen again.'
'If, in fact, there is a way to accomplish that diplomatically, that is overwhelmingly my preference,' he said firmly.
By MailOnline's count, Fox's Chris Wallace was the first anchor to air an interview, beating the field by mere seconds in what turned out to be a race to see which program could capture its audience with the quickest Obama quote on Monday night
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Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken (L) told reporters that his department wasn't aware of any proposal for Syria to give up its chemical weapons until Secretary of State John Kerry suggested it Monday, off-the-cuff, in London
'And I have instructed John Kerry to talk directly to the Russians and run this to ground. And if we can exhaust these diplomatic efforts and come up with a formula that gives the international community a verifiable, enforceable mechanism to deal with these weapons on Syria, then I'm all for it.'
'But we're going to have to see specifics,' the president cautioned. 'And I think it is reasonable to assume that we would not be at this point if there were not a credible military threat standing behind the norm against the use of chemical weapons.'
The president faces a steep uphill climb in Congress, with the Senate facing a filibuster possibility from the GOP's right wing and a rising tide of opposition in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
No fewer than 70 federal lawmakers made treks to the White House on Monday to hear the president's argument for why they should vote in favor of authorizing a military strike, if he should deem it necessary.
But while Obama has asked both houses to endorse the proposal, he insisted on Fox that 'the American people are right not to want to have us entangled in a sectarian civil war inside of Syria.'
Continuing to pursue the congressional war-powers resolution, Obama said, was primarily a tactical move at this point.
'I think it is important for us not to let the pedal off the metal when it comes to making sure they understand we mean what we say,' he said.
Of all the major news networks. CBS was the only one that did not broadcast an interview during the dinner hour. Its coverage was pre-empted by the U.S. Open tennis men's final match.
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