As Obama pushes to punish Syria, lawmakers fear deep US involvement

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama’s efforts to persuade the US Congress to back his plan to attack Syria met with skepticism yesterday from lawmakers in his own Democratic Party who expressed concern the United States would be dragged into a new Middle East conflict.
“There is a lot of skepticism,” said Representative Jim Moran after taking part in a 70-minute phone briefing for Democratic lawmakers by Obama’s top national security aides about the response to a chemical weapons attack that US officials say killed 1,429 people on the outskirts of Damascus.
Obama appeared to make some headway, however, with two influential Republican senators, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who came out of a White House meeting convinced that Obama is willing to use air strikes not just to destroy Syrian chemical weapons capability but also to bolster Syrian rebels.