For days the administration has made the case they don't need approval.  Even during the speech he said he doesn't need it.

He did no such thing before striking Lybia.

He is not calling congress into session but instead waiting 10 days and going to Europe.

This is beyond laughable.

Just say we're not going to strike and get it over with.   Which I approve of by the way.

Instead the cynic in me says like in all things Obama he is more concerned with the way he looks.   He wants to look tough but not strike.   I don't know what he thinks really at this point.

"Obama backed off of his decision. He must admit the victory of Syria" Sheikh Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun - The the Grand Mufti of Syria

"The Syrian army's readiness warded off U.S. aggression against Syria"  Kadri Jamil - Syrian Deputy Prime Minister

After a UN examination, let the UN handle this. The USA does not have any interest in Syria, whether Syria uses poison gas against its citizens or unleaded gas in its cars.

One U.S. official who has been briefed on the options on Syria said he believed the White House would seek a level of intensity "just muscular enough not to get mocked" but not so devastating that it would prompt a response from Syrian allies Iran and Russia.

"They are looking at what is just enough to mean something, just enough to be more than symbolic," he said.

"Mockery Avoidance." It's too beautiful to f**k with.

There are, no doubt, lessons here for the contemporary reader. The changing character of the native population, brought about through unremarked pressures on porous borders; the creation of an increasingly unwieldy and rigid bureaucracy, whose own survival becomes its overriding goal; the despising of the military and the avoidance of its service by established families, while its offices present unprecedented opportunity for marginal men to whom its ranks had once been closed; the lip service paid to values long dead; the pretense that we still are what we once were; the increasing concentrations of the populace into richer and poorer by way of a corrupt tax system, and the desperation that inevitably follows; the aggrandizement of executive power at the expense of the legislature; ineffectual legislation promulgated with great show; the moral vocation of the man at the top to maintain order at all costs, while growing blind to the cruel dilemmas of ordinary life- these are all themes with which our world is familiar, nor are they the God-given property of any party or political point of view, even though we often act as if they were.

The expectation that either side in the Syrian conflict will show restraint of any kind once pushed to the wall seems very unlikely. It will get nastier as time goes on.

It ain't just about Syria.

It would give them license to attack Iran as well, for instance, if they "determine" that Iran has a "connection" with the use of WMD in the Syrian civil war.

The same license would be available to them, without further "consultation" with congress to go after Hezbollah.

Folks:

These people are shady and less than forthcoming about their intentions.

As with GW Bush, this resolution they are seeking will open the door to widespread madness.

Following a chemical weapons attack in Syria on Aug. 21, tensions between the Assad regime and the west have risen dramatically -- and we've seen a corresponding rise in social media talk over a possible U.S.-led response.

Quite interesting to note is the effective disappearance of the very big story surrounding ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who has been leaking documents detailing top-secret surveillance programs since June.

Only two days ago, the entire budget of the U.S. intelligence community -- the so-called "black budget" -- was made public for the first time, thanks to those leaks. Despite these huge developments, and those still waiting to be revealed, it seems that Snowden and the NSA have fallen off the radar.

Here's a chart illustrating this from Topsy Analytics. As you can see, the rise of "Syria" mentions completely tower over any mentions of "NSA" or "Snowden."

One thing the Obama administration wishes to divert our attention from is its strategic incompetence. The expectation that the US would strike if Assad used chemical weapons arose from a gaffe President Obama made at a press conference in August, 2012. He used the phrase "red line" in response to a reporter's question.

In doing so, Obama surrendered the initiative. If such weapons were used, either he would have to strike or he would look weak. He created a perverse incentive for the Syrian rebels to stage chemical attacks that appeared to be the responsibility of the regime. He also created the problem of how much was enough: just what size of chemical attack would draw a US response? "Pin prick" chemical attacks over the past year sapped the credibility of the US and its talk of red lines.

The president learned nothing from his mistake. As initial reports came in of the most recent attack, he termed it a "big event", tying his hands tighter. The problem is that not only is Syria arguably not the US' biggest worry in the Middle East right now, little is to be gained from US military intervention there - either for US national interests or for the ideal of preventing the use of weapons of mass destruction.

The reason little is to be gained from intervention is the real scandal. The chemical strike in Damascus has laid bare not only Western hypocrisy but also Western powerlessness.

I guess if we have to destroy something that makes as much sense as anything, but it leaves the actual weapons in place and intact, and apparently they're already in the wrong hands and if Assad is overthrown they're almost certain to wind up in even "wronger" hands, greatly increasing the chances of them being used outside of Syria without a government that can be pointed to as the culprit.

Al-Nusra in Syria funded by US/UK

US funding al qaeda in Syria

Makes me wonder why the chemical weapons were used, for an immediate purpose, or to test our reaction?

Sometimes a slow response from your opponent is all that is needed for success. What do we do now if Assad makes a decisive use of chemical weapons against the rebels?

What happens if we launch missiles and somehow Assad is able to retaliate and strike one of our carriers?