Fleischer says asking Congress does not show weakness on the part of the president. Fleischer: 'I praise the president'

Former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer said Monday that President Barack Obama is right to seek congressional authorization for military action against Syria, explaining he learned from the Iraq War that such a move strengthens a nation.

“I praise the president for doing this. I think it is the right thing. I agree with the president that he has the authority to do this on his own; he is not abdicating that responsibility, but a nation is stronger — and I learned this as a result of Iraq — a nation is always stronger in a democracy when it has the people behind it,” Fleischer said Monday on CNN’s “New Day.”


Fleischer added that the move does not show weakness on the part of Obama, as some have argued, but rather “strengthens the president’s hand in the long run” — just as long as he wins the vote in Congress.

( PHOTOS: Syria: Where politicians stand)

The Bush-era White House official said while the War Powers Act requires consulting with Congress, that’s different than putting military action to a vote, which Fleischer said Obama is doing voluntarily.

“Consult is not vote,” Fleischer said. “This is really a voluntary exercise where the executive has said to the legislature, ‘I want you to act.’ You can guess why President Obama’s doing that, as a political cover, I still think it’s essentially right because democracy should support, through the Congress, any determination we even use the military in an instance like this. It’s not time-exigent; we don’t have troops on the line that are under attack; and we have to fight back.”

Fleischer’s support of the president comes after initial early criticism on Twitter, where as late as Friday he was lambasting Obama for not getting multilateral support for Syrian action.

Bush got Cong approval, tried 2go thru UN, &went in multilaterally. O has no Cong approval, didn’t try UN &will go in alone.— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) August 30, 2013

Bush’s attack on Iraq was multilateral. O, who attacked Bush for being a unilateralist, will make a unilateral attack on Syria— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) August 29, 2013

He has been supportive of Obama since the president’s announcement he will go to Congress for the vote authorizing military action.