PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Having famously cast the only Republican vote against authorizing the Iraq war while he was in the U.S. Senate, Governor Chafee is now urging an "emphatic no'' to military intervention in Syria.
"Our objective is peace, not inflammation of a volatile region,'' Chafee said Tuesday in an interview outside his State House office.
"I am a peace person. I want peace. I am not advocating for more military strikes...I think peace is achievable if gone about the right way,'' Chafee said. "I am a believer in diplomacy and listening to the people that live in the neighborhood and acting accordingly.''
Asked if he is convinced that Bashar Assad's government was responsible for a suspected chemical weapons attack blamed for more than 1,000 deaths, he said: "Atrocities are going to be alleged.. [and] various degrees of atrocities have probably occurred on both sides. The object isn't to escalate it. It is to find cool heads, and de-escalate.''
Asked if he thought there was any role for the United States in Syria, he said: "Of course. People look to the U.S. for leadership. We've tarnished that very, very badly with our actions in the region, starting with Bush and Cheney. Our credibility is fairly bankrupt, but nonetheless countries still look to us.''
Chafee, who since losing his 2006 bid for reelection to the Senate has become a Democrat, was quick to note that foreign policy is not part of his current job as governor.
"My job here is ... attracting jobs, making the DMV efficient, helping Central Falls, Providence, Pawtucket, building of schools, keeping tuitions down at Rhode Island College, the Community College of Rhode and [the] University of Rhode Island and that's a full-time job.''
But in his previous role as a U.S. senator, he notes, he was chairman of the Middle East Subcommittee of the Foreign relations Committee, and "so very, very deeply involved in Middle East issues back then.''
The Journal interviewed Chafee as the Congressional debate on how the United States should respond to Syria was heating up.
Secretary of State John Kerry was the lead-off witness at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday afternoon, pressing President Obama's argument that the United States needed to take punitive action against Syria.
President Obama is not asking America to go to war, he said. But added, "this is not the time for armchair isolationism. This is not the time to be spectators to slaughter.''
Earlier in the day, President Barack Obama won critical support from House Speaker John Boehner.
Emerging from a meeting at the White House, Boehner said the United States has "enemies around the world that need to understand that we're not going to tolerate this type of behavior. We also have allies around the world and allies in the region who also need to know that America will be there and stand up when it's necessary.''
(With reports from the Associated Press)