5 big questions about Congress' Syria vote

President Obama said over the weekend that he has decided the U.S. should launch a limited strike on Syria for using large amounts of chemical weapons on its civilians on Aug. 21 — a claim both the U.S. and France are making while the United Nations conducts its own investigation. In a surprise move, however, Obama also said he will ask Congress to authorize the use of military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government. (Watch Obama argue his case above)

Obama's decision to go to Congress is as risky as it is unexpected. Since John Adams requested congressional approval to attack France in 1798 — and in the 10 subsequent authorizations of military action and 11 formal declarations of war — "no U.S. president has ever been turned down by Congress when asking to use military force," say Michael C. Bender and Roxana Tiron at Bloomberg News. "Obama doesn't want to become the first."

But Congress seems as divided over military action in Syria as the general public, so it's not at all clear that Obama will get his wish for congressional approval. He does, however, seem almost certain to get his other stated wish: A robust debate. Congress won't formally re-convene until September 9, but the White House has already started classified briefings for lawmakers, and the Senate is beginning committee-level hearings on Tuesday.

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Whether Congress will approve of Obama's request for force is only one of the big questions surrounding what The Washington Post's Paul Kane and Ed O'Keefe predict will be "the most tumultuous foreign policy debate on Capitol Hill in more than a decade." Here's a look at what's at stake, and what might happen with Obama's big gamble.

1. What will lawmakers be voting on?

On Saturday, Obama handed a draft resolution of his request for military force to the leaders of Congress. Jack Goldsmith, a top legal aide to George W. Bush, argues at Lawfare that Obama's request of authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) is overly broad. "It authorizes the president to use any element of the U.S. Armed Forces and any method of force," Goldsmith says. "It does not contain specific limits on targets — either in terms of the identity of the targets (e.g., the Syrian government, Syrian rebels, Hezbollah, Iran) or the geography of the targets."

Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy agrees that the wording is "very broad" in some ways, but notes that it's narrow in its focus on Syrian chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. In any case, she adds, "Congress doesn't have to 'take or leave' Obama's proposed wording." Lawmakers could "adopt a narrower or broader authorization for the use of military force," limiting the scope or timeframe of the approved action.

In the House, where anti-war Democrats are already making common cause with anti-interventionist Republicans, there's a better chance that if Obama gets any resolution through, its scope will be "checked by Capitol Hill in a way that gives Congress a stake in the outcome," says W. James Antle III at The American Conservative.

2. Will Congress vote yes?

This is probably the most pressing question, and the answer is anyone's guess. Obama got a boost on Monday when two of the Senate's most prominent Republican foreign policy hawks — Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — gave their backing to his requested authorization following a meeting at the White House. But the Senate isn't really Obama's big obstacle; the House is.

Sarah Binder at The Monkey Cage looks at recent academic research into the politics of military-force votes, and isn't overly optimistic for the White House. "Few scholars still believe the adage that 'partisan politics stops at water's edge,'" she notes, and especially in today's hyper-polarized Washington, it's a good bet that "Obama will prevail in the Democratic Senate but face a much rockier road in the GOP House. War politics in Congress might closely resemble domestic legislative battles."

That could turn out really badly for Obama. The Wall Street Journal's Gerald F. Seib argues that Obama is essentially "gambling his presidency on the proposition that he can achieve the very goal that has proved most elusive to him for more than four years: A bipartisan consensus in a bitterly divided Congress." But Obama does have a viable path, Seib says:

3. Which wing of the GOP holds sway: Hawks or isolationists?

How House Democrats will vote is an open question — many have signaled their opposition to any intervention in Syria's civil war. But the bigger drama, says Jonathan Martin in The New York Times, is "which wing of the Republican Party — the traditional hawks, or a growing bloc of noninterventionists — has the advantage in the fierce internal debates over foreign policy that have been taking place all year."

If McCain is leading the hawks, the most prominent noninterventionist is Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). In another sign of where the real fight will be, Paul is reportedly going to concentrate his lobbying efforts to defeat the resolution in the House. The politics — especially how potential 2016 presidential candidates vote — will be fascinating.

4. Is Obama's big gamble worth it?

The president and his administration have some tough arguments to sell: That Congress should authorize an attack Obama argues he doesn't need congressional authority to execute; that the intelligence is solid, unlike before the Iraq War; and that a strike on Syria that doesn't fundamentally undermine Assad will do more good than harm.

Fred Kaplan at Slate argues that Obama's "monumental gamble" is worthwhile — even though it seems pretty clear that "if Congress votes no, he won't launch an attack."

The Week's Tom Rogan, on the other hand, argues that Obama's big gamble is a terrible idea and an even worse precedent. "By going to Congress, Obama might have placated his domestic critics, but he's weakened his office and he's endangered American interests," Rogan argues.

The New York Times editorial board says that taking the question to Congress is the right thing to do, but adds a big caveat:

5. Will this set a precedent for future presidents?

Obama's decision to ask Congress for authorization "appears to be more in keeping with the kind of executive-legislative collaboration envisioned in the Constitution," says David Rothkopf at Foreign Policy. That may be "appealing to the war-weary and war-wary," but for better or worse, Obama has just "reversed decades of precedent regarding the nature of presidential war powers."

The Volokh Conspiracy's Somin disagrees. "With the important exceptions of the Kosovo and Libya conflicts, presidents usually have sought congressional authorization for all but very small nondefensive uses of force," she says. "And rightly so, as a matter of both prudence and constitutional law."

Yale Law professor Stephen L. Carter largely agrees. "The transfer of authority from the legislative branch to the executive over the past century has been, on the whole, a terrible thing for the U.S. republic," and is largely to be blamed on "a Congress that will not protect its own prerogatives," he says at Bloomberg View. And Obama's decision to go to Congress "will do little to change that dynamic."