As members of Congress decide whether or not to support legislation authorizing military strikes against Syria with the knowledge that the United Nations Security Council is not likely to provide any imprimatur—as it did for the Gulf War in 1991, a critical factor in why a number of representatives and senators chose to back president George H.W. Bush—the supporters of imminent action have been sifting through the historical record to find ways to justify the use of force.
The military missions most commonly cited as analogies have been the Iraq War of 2003, the Kosovo intervention in 1999, and the Desert Fox operation in 1998. The Iraq War has become an unpleasant precedent, given that U.S. claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction proved to be unfounded while evidence, particularly from United Nations inspectors, that Baghdad did not possess WMD capabilities were discounted. The vote in the British parliament against taking any immediate action against Syria, as well as the skepticism of other governments and indeed many Americans, reflects a post-Iraq War legacy of distrust as to the veracity of definitive claims by U.S. intelligence.
