President Barack Obama responded to criticisms of his leadership in dealing with Syria on Sunday during an interview on ABC’s "This Week."
"I think that folks here in Washington like to grade on style. And so had we rolled out something that was very smooth and disciplined and linear they would have graded it well even if it was a disastrous policy," he said. "We know that because that’s exactly how they graded the Iraq war… I’m less concerned about style points. I’m much more concerned about getting the policy right."
The president and his administration have faced criticism for the last week over what some have called his "zig-zag foreign policy." The reproach has been bipartisan in nature, making it increasingly difficult for the administration to improve public perception and instill confidence in lawmakers as they work towards a solution.
Obama defended his administration’s stumbling efforts, saying that he achieved his goal of taking away Syria’s chemical weapons.
"We now have a situation in which Syria has acknowledged it has chemical weapons, has said it’s willing to join the convention on chemical weapons, and Russia, its primary sponsor, has said that they will pressure Syria to reach that agreement. That’s my goal and if that goal is achieved then it sounds to me like we did something right."
The United States and Russia reached a tentative agreement on Saturday to postpone U.S. military action in Syria provided President Bashar al-Assad turn over any chemical weapons in his control.
"This is a diplomatic breakthrough that is full of opportunity and fraught with danger," Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) said on NBC’s "Meet the Press."
"The opportunity is that we actually end up in a better place than we envisioned with the use of force, which is the elimination of all of Assad’s chemical weapons and his production facilities," Menendez said.
"The fraught part is that in fact Assad, who has still not said whether he has signed onto this agreement, ultimately… doesn’t fulfill elements of the agreement as we move along. The Russians find as they often do, saying in their mind some plausible reason why there should be no enforceable action at the United Nations and we’re back to where we started except that Assad has bought time on the battlefield and continued to ravage innocent civilians."
Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas) told "Fox News Sunday," the deal was a "step forward" and one he hoped would work.
"We need to do this because it can be done without a shot fired and hopefully without any American troops being put on the ground," he said.
"I do think that Putin is in a unique position rather than the president to get this done because of his leverage over Assad and over Syria," McCaul said. "Putin has now come forward as a leader and he owns this now, and I believe that that gives us the greatest ability to get this thing done."
Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), appearing on CBS’s "Face the Nation," urged "healthy" skepticism moving forward.
"There’s no question that Russia has retained its ability to veto under Chapter 7, so the threat of force…is still very much in Russian hands," Corker said. "I think we should be skeptical until we see how this unfolds."
Like lawmakers, the public is split on whether or not the proposed tactic will work.
Assad’s forces have begun to move "stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the U.S. to track," according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The dispersal of the weapons stockpiles further complicates a difficult diplomatic situation.