“The Obama administration began a full-press campaign on Sunday for Congressional approval of its plan to carry out a punitive strike against the Syrian government,” the New York Times reports.

“The lobbying blitz stretched from Capitol Hill, where the administration held its first classified briefing on Syria open to all lawmakers, to Cairo, where Secretary of State John Kerry reached Arab diplomats by phone in an attempt to rally international support for a firm response to the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus.”

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that leading lawmakers “dealt bipartisan rejection” to Obama’s “request to strike Syrian military targets, saying the best hope for congressional approval would be to narrow the scope of the resolution.”

Roll Call notes that after a classified briefing “not a single member seemed to think a resolution authorizing force against the war-torn nation could pass at the present time.”

“I think it’s at least 50/50 whether the House will vote down involvement in the Syrian war. I think the Senate will rubber stamp what Obama wants but I think the House will be a much closer vote.”

— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), in an interview on Meet the Press.

Secretary of State John Kerry said that “fresh laboratory tests show that Sarin nerve gas was used in an Aug. 21 attack in Syria that killed more than 1,400 people, the first time that U.S. officials have pinpointed what kind of chemical weapon was used,” the Washington Post reports.

“A stroll around the White House grounds with his top adviser on Friday evening changed President Obama’s mind about getting Congress to sign off on a military strike in Syria,” senior White House officials told NBC News.

“Obama had been leaning toward attacking Syria without a congressional vote for the past week… But a growing number of Congressional members were beginning to question the administration’s strategy by the end of the week. And an NBC News poll released Friday morning showed that nearly 80% of Americans agreed that the president should seek approval in advance of taking military action… Officials said Obama also was influenced by Thursday’s lively debate in the House of Commons.”

“Following Obama’s Saturday address, during which he announced he had decided the United States ‘should’ take military action in Syria and also decided to seek Congressional approval, administration officials clarified to The Daily Beast that they can’t rule out the president might act even if Congress fails to authorize the action of using American military force in Syria. Officials declined to speculate whether Congress would vote to authorize military action or not when it comes back to Washington.”

A senior State Department official tells Fox News “the president’s decision to take military action in Syria still stands, and will indeed be carried out, regardless of whether Congress votes next week to approve the use of such force.”

White House officials told BuzzFeed that Obama “wasn’t giving the legal power to authorize the Syria attacks back to Congress, leaving open at least the possibility that Obama could strike after the Congress decides not to authorize strikes.”

President Obama announced he would seek congressional authorization to launch an attack on Syria over its use of chemical weapons on its own citizens, NBC News reports.

Said Obama: “I know well we are weary of war but we are the United States of America and we must not and cannot turn a blind eye to what happened in Damascus.”

Los Angeles Times: “Congressional approval could prove difficult, as conservatives and
liberal Democrats have expressed uneasiness with a military campaign.”

“The president has mishandled this as badly as he could. Quite frankly, the chickens have come home to roost from Obama foreign policy of leading from behind and being passive.”

— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by The Hill, on the crisis in Syria.