Momentum on Syria strike slows in West as Obama turns to Congress Lacking domestic consensus, UN support and NATO backing the President has turned to Congress to authorise a military strike against Syria that Mr Obama had been poised to approve. Only hours before, Secretary of State John Kerry had laid out a passionate argument in favour of attacking. "I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets," the president said in a statement at the White House on Saturday afternoon. I'm also mindful that I'm president of the world's oldest constitutional democracy. President Barack Obama arrives to make a statement about Syria in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, delaying what had appeared to be an imminent strike. Hours later the White House sent a resolution to Congress for it to consider and vote on that would give him authority launch an attack on Syria, and Congressional leaders confirmed they would vote on the resolution no later than the week beginning September 9, when they return from summer recess. With America hesitating after Britain's government was rebuked in parliament over its planned role in the attack, French President Francois Hollande has announced he too will have his parliament consider the pending action after the US Congress votes - suggesting that the momentum behind a US-led military strike is slowing. Mr Obama's move is fraught with political risk as Congress remains fractured and log-jammed, and even some of its Republican members have a poisonous relationship not only with the White House but with their own party leadership. The President called on Congress to look past political differences as it debated a punitive strike against the Assad regime in retribution for its use of chemical weapons in the ongoing Syrian civil war. There are already signs that his plea has been ignored, with one Republican, Mike Turner, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land forces, said he would block funding for an attack until the president reverses the so-called "sequester" spending cuts, which both sides of politics have been blaming on each other since 2011. The senior Republican hawks John McCain and Lindsey Graham said they could not support the attack because it did not go far enough. Both men have long been calling on the US to intervene to remove Dr Assad from power. While the constitution does confer the responsibility for declaring war on the Congress, it has become standard practice for the president as commander-in-chief of the armed forces to launch military action unilaterally, depending on Congress to then authorise funding once troops are in action. As a senator Obama spoke out against this practice, and some time on Friday night he decided to seek Congressional approval for the strike. But in his statement he still made it clear he did believe he had the legal authority to launch the action without Congressional approval. Officials have told reporters that on Friday night -the day after British prime minister David Cameron lost a vote to back the attack - the President walked in the grounds of the White House with his Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, and decided to refer the matter to Congress. Responses to Mr Obama's change of heart exposed divisions in foreign policy in Congress. Senator Rand Paul, the prominent Republican with foreign policy views sometimes described as isolationist told Fox News he was "proud" of the President, and said he would vote against a strike. The White House has still not yet made it clear if the President would launch the attack even if Congress votes against it.