Obama Abandons, Then Shifts Responsibility For Red Line on Syria

Katie Pavlich | September 04, 2013 11:55 AM

Speaking to reporters during a joint press conference in Stockholm Wednesday, President Obama abandoned, then shifted his red line to the world and Congress, saying their credibility is on the line when it comes to making a decision about whether the United States should intervene militarily in Syria's civil war.

"First of all, I didn't set the red line. The world set the red line.

FLASHBACK to 2012 when Barack Obama was running for re-election.

"We have been very clear to the Assad regime but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized."

In 2012 President Obama made a red-line gaffe about consequences for the use of chemical weapons in Syria. In 2013, someone in Syria (the Assad regime according to government reports) used chemical weapons, therefore holding President Obama accountable to his own red-line standard of which he has now ignored and passed off to the the world. Ironically, as Obama pins his red line comment on "the world," he's willing to ignore the United Nations and their recommendations against intervention in Syria.

Meanwhile, Obama is calling in his old campaign team to try and sell his message on Syria to the America people. In other words, he's calling back his attack dogs in order to shame Congress into voting in his favor for military intervention in Syria while avoiding an Oval Office address.

The White House is getting advice from some former campaign advisers on how to win congressional support for a strike on Syria, Fox News has learned, with top White House aides soliciting their input during a long strategy session Tuesday afternoon.

The aides met with former top Obama campaign hands like strategist Anita Dunn, former deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter and long-time adviser David Axelrod. While the president himself did not attend the meeting, attendees said the goal was to kick around ideas about how to help Obama win crucial votes in Congress as he faces a critical test of his presidency as soon as next week.

Attendees of the Tuesday afternoon strategy session said another goal of the meeting was to sharpen the administration’s message about the potential U.S. military action after a series of difficult news cycles for the White House.