Portman calls for congressional vote on Syrian airstrikes

Senator Rob Portman of Ohio said on Thursday that President Obama would be “smart” to come to Congress to authorize airstrikes in Syria but has the “authority to act” in Iraq against the Islamic State even without congressional approval.

In a speech Wednesday evening, Obama had said he did not need an authorization vote from Congress for military action against the terrorist group, also known as ISIL or ISIS, though he welcomed congressional “support” for the mission. The timing of such a vote, with a midterm election less than two months away, is difficult for both parties — but especially so for the Democrats, who are at risk of losing the Senate majority they gained in large part because of their opposition to the Iraq War.

Though Portman, who is considering a 2016 presidential bid, said that war should not be handled in a partisan manner, he was quick to challenge Obama’s leadership during a breakfast conversation hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

“I don’t consider it a new war. I consider it a continuation of something that began 13 years ago [with the Sept. 11 attacks],” Portman said of the president’s open-ended plan for war against the Islamic State. “The president may try to wish it away, but this threat continues.”

Portman also blamed the worsening situation in Iraq and Syria on the president’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq.

“The vacuum that was left by the way in which we chose to leave Iraq is much of the problem with the current situation,” Portman said. “The president also made it clear that we have not had the kind of leadership that is necessary to deal with this threat.”

In particular, Portman criticized Obama for telegraphing that the military engagement against IS would be limited. “The president continues in every speech to take great pains to describe what he’s not going to do, including again telling our allies and telegraphing to our enemies that there will not be U.S. troops on the ground,” he said.

Hinting publicly at the need for increased troops on the ground would have seemed unthinkable politically back in 2007 at the twilight of the George W. Bush administration, in which Portman served for more than three years in a domestic policy capacity. But Portman’s views of American foreign policy in the region and the president’s ability to act unilaterally, at least in part, seems Republican retro. Some of his Senate colleagues who also have eyes on the White House, like Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, have said that Congress should vote on a declaration of war on the entire plan for engagement no matter what. “It is unconstitutional what he’s doing,” Paul told Fox News Wednesday night.

When asked by Yahoo News after the breakfast how Portman saw all of these events — the fight against IS, the Iraq War and 9/11 — linked, Portman said the serious threats against America are not tightly defined but still require our government’s action.

“Radical Islam is the enemy,” Portman said. “So it’s not a specific threat in Afghanistan in 2001, 9/11, and it’s not ISIS in 2014 in Iraq, it’s this broader threat of radical Islamists who use violent means and are intent upon creating havoc, including attacking the West.”

Portman said he believes IS poses a serious threat to the United States, even though top administration officials like Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said as recently as Wednesday that there is “no credible information that [IS] is planning to attack the homeland of the United States.” Obama also did not give an account of specific threats to the United States.

As the breakfast was under way at a downtown Washington hotel near the White House, Britain and Germany announced they would not take part in American airstrikes in Syria.

With Congress likely to break for the weekend Thursday — after having only returned Monday from a five-week recess—Portman said he did not expect any sort of vote on the military mission in the next few days. Congress could bundle some sort of legislative language on the president’s plan for IS into a larger stopgap spending measure to keep the government open. That bill likely will be passed before the end of September, when Congress will recess again for the 2014 elections.

"I believe when Obama begins to execute the plan he talked about in Syria, he should come to Congress. That would be smart," the Ohio Republican said.

Portman, who has a leadership position in the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, plans to spend some time on the trail between now and November. He told reporters at the breakfast he would not make a decision on a potential presidential bid until after the election in November.