The crisis in Syria is certainly different than that of Iraq but for today let’s look back at that authorization vote. Since President Obama violated the War Powers Act in 2011 by sidestepping Congress for a 70-day military exercise against Libya the Iraq vote is the last we have on the authorization of force by a US Congress.
In the case of Iraq we had what we believed was clear intelligence about the accumulation of WMD’s and the desire to use it against American interests. However little was made of the possibility that Iran could be strengthened by taking out Saddam Hussien although I raised this issue very openly and aggressively at the time.
Senator Bob Graham who voted “Nay” on the resolution felt that a simplistic view was being taken and that interpretation of the intelligence was faulty. He proved to be correct.
Personally I do not oppose preemptive war. Liberals at the time made much of this being an unprecedented act by the United States, but given our national experience, preempting threats is critical in the new global order. However, Iraq never represented a real threat to American interests and thus never met the threshold needed for war. The vote is below.
Senate
Nay D Graham, Bob
Yea D Nelson, Bill
House
Yea R Miller, Jeff FL 1st
Yea D Boyd, Allen FL 2nd
Nay D Brown, Corrine FL 3rd
Yea R Crenshaw, Ander FL 4th
Yea D Thurman, Karen FL 5th
Yea R Stearns, Cliff FL 6th
Yea R Mica, John FL 7th
Yea R Keller, Ric FL 8th
Yea R Bilirakis, Mike FL 9th
Yea R Young, W. Bill FL 10th
Yea D Davis, Jim FL 11th
Yea R Putnam, Adam FL 12th
Yea R Miller, Dan FL 13th
Yea R Goss, Porter FL 14th
Yea R Weldon, Dave FL 15th
Yea R Foley, Mark FL 16th
Nay D Meek, Carrie FL 17th
Yea R Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana FL 18th
Yea D Wexler, Robert FL 19th
Yea D Deutsch, Peter FL 20th
Yea R Diaz-Balart, Lincoln FL 21st
Yea R Shaw, Clay FL 22nd
Nay D Hastings, Alcee FL 23rd
The Florida Squeeze 
Okay … I’ll ask the question:
“If “the crisis in Syria is different than that of Iraq” and “Iraq never represented a real threat to American interests and thus never met the threshold needed for war,” will someone please explain HOW it is different and then DETAIL why Syria is a real threat to American interests?”
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No Syria is most certainly not in the national security interest of the United States. Iraq and Syria both are not. Syria is different in that we claim to not be seeking regime change and that they have used Chemical Weapons against domestic opposition. But fundamentally while the circumstances are different the deliberation/calculation should be the same, which is to be very cautious about foreign intervention.
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