President Obama conducted interviews on six major television networks Monday in order to convince the American public to back his proposed U.S. military strike in Syria. Polls show that up to 60 percent of Americans are not in favor of US military action against the country.
Last week, a sharply divided Senate panel approved President Obama's resolution to launch a limited military strike against Syria. Moving forward, the president must also convince Congress to support his military attack, which comes in response to allegations that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons to kill over 1,400 of its civilians in August.
Obama's resolution would launch limited strikes against Syrian forces in a period of 60 days, with the possibility of 30 more days after consultation with Congress. It would also block the use of American ground troops.
On Monday, the president spent the day talking to news reporters about Syria before major congressional votes. He conducted sit-down interviews with anchors at ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN and PBS
While speaking with CBS' Scott Pelley, Obama admitted that he's aware that public opinion is not on his side; however, he remained optimistic that more Americans would be convinced after they hear his prime-time speech on Syria Tuesday.
"What I'm gonna try to propose is, is that we have a very specific objective, a very narrow military option, and one that will not lead into some large-scale invasion of Syria or involvement or boots on the ground, nothing like that," Obama told Pelley. "This isn't like Iraq, it's not like Afghanistan, it's not even like Libya. Then hopefully people will recognize why I think this is so important."
During his interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Obama dismissed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's threat to retaliate against an U.S. military strike, saying that while they may be effective for attacking "children," "he doesn't have a credible means to threaten the United States."
The president told NBC News' Savannah Guthrie that though he is not sure if he would receive congressional approval for a military strike, he said that he is "confident that the members of Congress are taking this issue very seriously, and they're doing their homework, and I appreciate that.
In his one-on-one with Fox News' Chris Wallace, President Obama quoted former President Ronald Reagan, who stressed his hopes that the crisis in Syria can be solved in a non-military way, "I think we should explore and exhaust all avenues of diplomatic resolution to this, but I think it's important to keep the pressure on and - to quote or to paraphrase, at least, a former U.S. president, Ronald Reagan - it's not enough just to trust, I think we're going to have to verify."
Obama told ABC's Diana Sawyer that the Russia-proposed diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria is a "modestly positive development," and that a strike will "absolutely" be deterred if al-Assad decides to give up his chemical weapons.
President Obama admitted to PBS NewsHour host Gwen Ifill that even some members of own family are feeling some "wariness" regarding his proposal to attack Syria. "If you talk to my own family members or Michelle's, they're very wary and suspicious of any action," he admitted.