Kerry Was Not In Obama Meeting That Pulled Back from Military Intervention in Syria.(EAWorldview).
Tucked away in a lengthy Politico article about the White House handling of President Obama’s Cabinet is this revelation about Obama’s decision to pull back from military intervention after the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons on August 21:
On Aug. 30, [Secretary of State John] Kerry had just delivered an impassioned argument in the State Department Treaty Room for launching an immediate missile strike on Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, when Obama invited [Denis] McDonough — his most trusted national security aide before taking up the [White House] Chief of Staff portfolio—for a long stroll around the White House grounds….
Obama returned to tell a stunned group of aides gathered in the Oval Office that he had decided to seek congressional approval first, despite dim prospects of passage.
A few weeks later, sitting on the sunny patio outside McDonough’s West Wing office, I asked him if it was true that Kerry and [Secretary of Defense] Hagel weren’t around to hear Obama’s big decision. “They were not in the Oval, that is correct,” McDonough told me, though he said the notion of going to Congress had at least been broached during several contentious meetings earlier that week, at which both men had been present….
“I’m trying to figure out if I’m about to commit news here, but the President talked to both of those Cabinet members [later that evening by phone then they had another meeting the next morning.”
There was nothing out of the ordinary about the process, McDonough insists. But Kerry was taken aback, according to several people in his orbit—as stung by the West Wing’s planting of the “Walk” narrative in the media as by the snub itself.Hmmm......'Commander-In-Chief.
