Obama administration arguments in favor of striking Syria to deter it from using chemical weapons again met tough questioning Wednesday, Sept. 4, in a skeptical House of Representatives that focused less on shoring up US credibility than on the potential costs and unintended consequences of direct US military involvement in Syria’s civil war. 

A secondary argument by the executive branch has been that it is necessary to strike Syria to convince Iran that President Barack Obama was not bluffing when he also vowed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. However, during a hearing that lasted more than four hours, only seven of 35 members of the House Foreign Relations Committee who posed questions to top US officials stressed the Iran angle. Many more asked if US action would embolden Islamic extremists who oppose the Syrian regime and why it was an American responsibility to respond to what did not appear to be an imminent threat to US national security.

“We shouldn’t be drug [sic] into someone else’s civil war where there are no good guys,” was the way Jeff Duncan put it. The South Carolina Republican said that he had spoken to hundreds of his constituents and “not a one say get involved.”

Ted Poe of Texas, another conservative Republican, had perhaps the most memorable line among the questioners, saying that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is “wasting good air breathing.” But despite his abhorrence for Assad, Poe said he was convinced that “there is no pure side in this civil war.”