Republican Senator says Syria wouldn't be a problem if Bush was still president

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama believes the country wouldn't be facing the decision of whether to attack Syria if George W. Bush was still in the White House.

At a town hall meeting on Friday, he claimed that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would be too afraid to use chemical weapons if Bush were president.

"I don't mean to be partisan about it, and we've only got one President, and we don't need to weaken the President or the office of the President," Sessions said, "but I do believe if President Bush had told Bashar Assad, 'You don't use those chemical weapons or you're going to be sorry, we'll come after you, there'll be consequence you will not want to bear,' I don't believe he would have used it."

Sessions said that the situation in Syria showed that "peace through strength" was a "solid principle." He claimed Assad never believed Obama would follow through on his threat to intervene, implying the President was seen as weak and indecisive.

"Now we gotta go to war or not go to war," Sessions continued. "It would have been better if he never used the weapons."

Obama repeatedly warned Damascus that using chemical weapons would cross a "red line" and lead to U.S. military intervention. Republican Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), along with Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), in April urged the President to take preemptive action against Syria to prevent the use of chemical weapons.

The Obama administration says it has evidence that Assad's regime used poison gas against rebels on August 21 in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. Obama has asked Congress to authorize military action against the country.

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube by the National Review, below: