Rep. Steve Stockman (R., Texas) says he is willing to vote in favor of military intervention in Syria if President Barack Obama returns his Nobel Peace Prize, according to a statement from the lawmaker’s office.
Stockman said that although he opposed a military strike against embattled Syrian President Bashar al Assad he "will switch and vote for the resolution only if Obama will honestly answer several questions about it."
"I am prepared to vote in favor of Obama’s folly if he can fully and truthfully answer eleven questions about the Syria operation and his bungling of it," Stockman said in the statement.
Among those questions: "Are you willing to return your Nobel Peace Prize?"
Stockman poses ten other questions:
1) After your intervention in NATO, Libya has become a practically failed state and four Americans were murdered by terrorists, which you refuse to fully investigate. What will be done in Syria to prevent a repeat of your failures in Libya?
2) Why was Egypt, the largest Muslim nation in the Middle East, not asked to participate in the Syrian process or even consulted on the matter?
3) What assurances do you have that Syria’s chemical weapons will be secured, other than trusting Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin and the competence of the United Nations?
4) Should your strikes result in the likely outcome of toppling Assad, who will seize control of Syria?
5) Should Assad fall NATO cannot guarantee that control of Syria will not fall to al-Qaeda and affiliated extremists. Do you know something they don’t?
6) Are you willing to return your Nobel Peace Prize?
7) NATO tells me any military strike on Syria will succeed only if every factor goes according to plan, which never happens in military strikes. Are you willing to risk our troops and national security on this?
8) Can you guarantee with absolute certitude that no ground troops whatsoever would be needed to secure chemical weapons, battle extremists now in control of Syria or rescue hostages or captured soldiers or airmen?
9) If the aim of military strikes is to eliminate chemical weapons capabilities without costing Assad his capability to stay in power, can you guarantee with absolute certitude that will happen?
10) Given the fact you have already told Assad where you will strike and given him ample time to organize human shields, are you prepared to deal with the fact Assad may sacrifice women and children to inflame tensions against the U.S.?