Tim Kaine: 'We're Involved in a War That Congress Hasn't Debated'

(CNSNews) - Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), speaking about the "catastrophe" in Syria, blamed both Congress and the Obama administration for failing to produce a "sound strategy."

"Bottom line, we're involved in a war that Congress hasn't debated," Kaine told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Thursday. "And because we haven't debated it, the administration hasn't had to come up with a sound strategy. We're in a very vulnerable position right now."

Russia's intervention in Syria is not surprising, Kaine said, given Russia's interest in protecting its military base in that increasingly unstable country.

And now, with both U.S. and Russian jets flying in the same air space, the chances for "just an accident" are growing, Kaine said. "We wouldn't want this to spiral into something more significant that would pull the U.S. and Russia into military conflict."

Kaine noted that President Obama "started this war against ISIL" on August 8, 2014, to defend the U.S. Consulate in Erbil and to stop the "humanitarian atrocity" involving the Kurds in northern Iraq.

"There was a self-defense rationale that allowed him to start it without Congress," Kaine said. "But within two weeks, the protect-the-Americans side of this was done, and at that point, the president's legal authority, in my view, expired.

More