The Senate on Thursday passed a government funding measure that includes a provision authorizing President Obama to equip and train moderate Syrian rebels to fight Islamic terrorists in the Middle East.
Lawmakers approved the measure by a vote of 78-22 over growing discontent in both parties about expanding U.S. military involvement in the Middle East to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
The House passed the legislation on Wednesday, so it will now head to President Obama’s desk.
Senate Democrats and Republicans debated for several hours about whether to grant the authorization, which was requested by President Obama as part of a broader strategy to combat the Islamic State.
Like the House, Senate passage depended upon a rare bipartisan coalition, with lawmakers from both parties voting both for and against it.
The Syria provision was included in a measure that authorizes government spending until Dec. 11 at an annual cap of $1.012 trillion.
Some senators argued against attaching the two measures because, they said, it forced them to make an impossible choice.
Federal funding runs out at the end of the fiscal year, on Sept. 30, so the bill was considered a must-pass measure in order to avert a government shutdown.
“If we are going to send American troops to arm and train Syrian rebels for their fight against ISIS, we need to debate that decision on its own merits and not take it up as a condition of providing ongoing funding for the federal government,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, argued during Senate debate.
Democratic leaders argued in favor of Obama’s request, which was outlined by Secretary of State John Kerry in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.
The Islamic State terrorists are destabilizing the Middle East and have beheaded two Americans and a British aid worker, posting the gruesome acts on the Internet.
“We must stand with our partners in the region to confront this barbarism,” Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said in Senate floor debate.“Regional stability and U.S. security demand it.”
Senate Democrats and Republicans, however, are demanding a debate on whether the president is authorized to conduct a broader campaign that includes current and planned bombing missions in both Iraq and Syria.
Senate Democratic leaders promised that when Congress returns after the election in November, they’ll take up a measure authorizing President Obama to use military force in the Middle East beyond what Congress voted for in 2001 and 2002 during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“It’s long overdue,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said, adding that authorizations “that were passed in 2001 and 2002 are hard to wrap around today’s challenge.”
President Obama thanked Congress for the “speed and seriousness” in which it passed a measure he requested to give the military the authority to train and arm Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Just minutes after the Senate passed a stop-gap spending bill that included language to arm vetted Syrian rebels, Obama delivered a statement in the White House State room hailing its passage and vowing to take the fight to Islamic State “terrorists.” Obama said bipartisanship is the “hallmark” of U.S. national security “at its best.”
“As Americans we do not give into fear,” he said. The Islamic State thought their “barbaric” killings would cause the U.S. to “shrink from the world,” the president said. “As Americans we do not give into fear…when you threaten our allies, it doesn’t divide us, it unites us.”
