This Fall People Pushed Back on Syria—and Won 
In Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other cases, the people protested and got war anyway. Why has the story played out differently with Syria?

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by Sarah van Gelder

This September, the United States stood at the brink of yet another war. President Obama was announcing plans to order US military strikes on Syria, with consequences that no one could predict.

Then things shifted. In an extraordinarily short time, the people petitioned, called their representatives in Congress, held rallies, and used social media to demand a nonviolent approach to the crisis. The march toward war slowed.

During his address to the nation, President Obama said his administration will work with close allies, and with Russia and Syria, toward a diplomatic solution: pushing a resolution through the UN Security Council requiring the Syrian government to give up its chemical weapons. He also said the US will give UN weapons inspectors a chance to report their findings.

If these diplomatic efforts to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons are successful, historians may look back at this as a moment when the people finally got the peace they demanded.

How did we step back from the brink?

On August 29, the British Parliament rejected a motion to authorize an assault on Syria, and Prime Minister David Cameron accepted the vote—even though he was not required to do so by law. The leading member of Parliament from the Labour Party, Ed Milliband, said he’d acted “for the people of Britain,” who “want us to learn the lessons of Iraq.”

In the United States, MoveOn.org, which usually supports President Obama, launched a campaign asking him to seek an alternative to military strikes in Syria.

“We have seen the rushed march to war before,” Anna Galland, executive director of MoveOn.org civil action, said in a statement. “We cannot allow it again. Congress, and the nation, should not be forced into a binary debate over strikes or nothing.”

Other groups joined in, such as VoteVets.org, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and US Action. Meanwhile, Rep. Scott Rigell of Virginia and House Majority Leader John Boehner, both Republicans, circulated letters requesting that Congress be consulted prior to any military strikes. 116 house members—both Republicans and Democrats—signed on.

And Obama listened. It’s hard to say if he agreed to consult Congress prior to attacking because he felt the pressure, because he was getting cold feet about going to war, or because the War Powers Resolution—a federal law passed after the end of the Vietnam War— requires congressional approval for beginning a war. 

On August 31, he announced he would turn to the US Congress for authorization of military strikes. To many ordinary Americans, it felt like a racing freight train had suddenly been brought to a halt. The pause gave the public a chance to weigh in, and they showed up in force. Members of Congress reported an avalanche of calls and emails from constituents, almost all opposing military involvement. Even though, many have questioned the usefulness of contacting members of Congress in recent years, as Washington, D.C., has become something of a corporate controlled bubble.

While Congress was debating and fielding calls from constituents, military strikes were on hold. Then, Secretary of State John Kerry opened the door to diplomacy, saying that if Syria were to dispose of its chemical weapons, military action could be averted. That idea was quickly embraced by Russia and Syria. The agreement that’s  being hashed out may turn out to be the breakthrough that allows the US to back down from a potentially catastrophic military incursion.

This is clearly what the American people and the people of the world are saying they want, and, for once, they seem to be getting it.
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Story from YES! Magazine
Posted Dec 2013

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