Written by Robert S. Becker   

Rare are the moments when hard-bitten pundits kneel in prayer, paying homage to the imminent wonder upon us. What was unimaginable a month ago, without drastic foreign muggings against the homeland, has come to pass. We bask for a moment as these United States are more unified on anything since, let's see, yes, Dubya's dragged himself into exile and obscurity.

A potent House rejection of the Obombardier would be historic, signifying oft-ignored voters acting together against the planet's menacing, powerful gang, bristling with military prowess, hefty media domination, and consent from top brass in both party establishments. What reinforces the marvel is a growing unanimity comes without spitting, patriotic rage vowing fire and brimstone against rogue terrorists. Since bottom-up endorsements of peace over war are rarer even than recent military victories, this is news.

Let us thus give the devil his due, though Obama took five hard years to disrupt the simplistic national color war on which Bush-Cheney-Rove feasted. However murky are motivations, Obama alone has successfully blurred seemingly imperishable chasms between blue states and red. Still more remarkable, this groundswell of anti-war insurgency merges goofy Tea Party libertarians, centrist/liberal Democrats, and rational adults unimpressed, to say the least, with conspicuously unpersuasive, even amateurish propaganda. Who would have thunk it?

Hallelujah, as God intervenes against violence in mysterious ways! Note, this wondrous unity comes so far with zero bloodshed, no stomping imperial boots, and no expense of cruise missile billions in a waste of shame. Still Obama may stick to his threat, scorning the will of the people, but won’t that prove desperation and won’t that shred further falling approval ratings? No-drama Obama would be recast with "Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead" roguery, a lurch even this change-artist can't survive. Can a president failing to garner support for one strike succeed in pulling off such a role reversal?

Once-a-Century Still Counts

Who would have guessed, after this week's hawkish Senate committee vote, Huffington Post among others headlines War Vote in Deep Trouble? Congressional defiance of any presidential belligerence is a once-a-century phenomenon, promising to restrain global bullying or more loss of prestige. Behold a third ripple: were that greater than 50% of us obeyed when yelling "No More War," it’d be high time to rush to the streets, celebrating with Lincoln that majority rule has not wholly perished from this earth.

And more: might the benighted mob begin to learn the clear lesson, unheeded by the Afghan surge or the Iraqi debacle, that the great enemy to our national security, if not world peace, is US, yes, the U.S.? Oh, my. What a valuable insight when a greater critical mass realizes that Syrian thugs, though thick as thieves, aren't the world's dire threats. Could a millions come to appreciate that no power on earth can stop other people, dying to kill each other, from doing just that?

Here, out in the open, is the entire, unholy alliance: moralizing White House chicken hawks in cahoots with the pro-Israeli Republican top brass and the intact, pro-war faction of McCain militarists. What people in power haven't learned from Iraq could fill countless books. Item: not only is the U.S. a miserable nation-builder (nothing compared to our destructive power), but we're even worse when "moral outrage" drives us to impose our will on resistant cultures. And the worst ploy is Dubya's Delusion: that our degraded republican system fits perfectly with populations who don't know democracy from camel dung (no disrespect to camel herders).

What a noble battle on tap now, one for the ages. People rising up against a deluded, war-mad elite allied for a all sorts of inhumane, if not rash reasons. Call your Congressperson so that body speaks for the majority against Obama, who presumably either: 1) is stuck with a red line foot in his mouth; 2) has delusions of grandeur as a recharged war president; 3) rushes into another bombing fray without ducks in a row, domestic or international; and 4) grievously misremembers, when you're up to your ass in alligators, your original intention was to drain the swamp. Is there any doubt wrong weapons, dropped on a hornets' nest, will sting everyone?

Better Late than Never

I for one forgive the president for taking so long to reduce even one red-blue schism. Even if lasting weeks or months, any peace movement that heals a national schism could have legs. Progress in this nation notorious for rushing full-stream ahead with belligerence comes in baby steps. So, any shift that halts the inexorable American war machine is worth combined rebel yells, Tea Party roars and liberal hurrahs. Watch out from kicks from strange bedfellows.

Is there any doubt the gain goes beyond stopping one strike and a few hundred killed? Force even two Yankee boots inside, and the slippery slope comes fast and furious. Start bombing, and then we just have to send in the clowns called "military advisers" who talk (dubiously) about "advanced battlefield intelligence." And then, when vulnerable heroes are blasted to kingdom come, will the commander-in-chief wait a Washington second before shipping in Special Forces, Marines, the Army, and Air Force?

Presidential Suicide?

Finally, one final implication, courtesy of the Iraqi hangover, I can't resist. While Dubya and crew lied all day and all night before, during and after invading Iraq, they did fulfill one promise: topple a defiant dictator. However misguided the aim, Saddam was named enemy-in-chief and that costly mission was accomplished. What's the Obombardier's objective today, then a week after the bombing? Obama the Oblique, infused with more moral outrage than forethought, cannot think anything less than occupation would stop atrocities, thus, logically we can assume hidden, rippling agendas, whoever is hatching, whatever the nefarious plots.

Ultimately, where does the scenario of defying Congress, then inviting dire, unintended consequences take Obama? If all hell breaks loose (count on something bad) then enormous White House discredit, if not impeachment, is on the table. The same rightwingers who can't stand the president won't be impressed with utter disaster. Obama thinks he’s setting up Congress but the reverse is equally true.

We can still credit Obama for doing the impossible -- unifying the country -- without knowing how historians will explain the horror of the "urgency of now" becoming the repugnance of how and why and where? If Syria is the president's forced emergency, or perceived lifeline, he's inviting political suicide, which is strangely enough exactly what the rightwing dreamed of from Day One. And Hillary, who cheers on the bombing (worse, arming the rebels), could end being a two-time presidential loser. Is that smart or what?