The dilemma facing leaders in Washington is difficult enough to make observers wish for a return of the decade-old debate over WMDs, weapons of mass destruction.

Much of the Iraq War’s premise was built by George W. Bush and his advisers around the thinking that Saddam Hussein had the means to export attacks across the Middle East with such nuclear or chemical weapons that his regime was a danger to the rest of the world.

In 2002, arguing against the authorization to go to war, Hawaii’s U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, in an impassioned impromptu address on the Senate floor warned:

"I’m concerned about the security of this country," Inouye said. "I’m concerned about what history will say about this nation 50 years from now. Did we brutalize people or did we carry on ourselves as civilized people?"

"To attack a nation that has not attacked us will go down in history as something that we should not be proud of," said Inouye.

Today a Democratic, not Republican, president is again poised to launch attacks in the Middle East, this time to start an aerial bombing campaign against Islamic militants known as ISIL.

The horrific murder of prisoners, including two American journalists, was enough to enrage the news-watching public to support the U.S. doing something.

Perhaps releasing American drones for a series of bombing raids would have some psychological benefit, but diplomatic and military strategists are unsure of exactly what Obama’s mission would be.

So on Wednesday, Hawaii two Democratic members of Congress, Reps. Colleen Hanabusa and Tulsi Gabbard, voted against authorizing the arming and training of Syrian rebels to attack the Islamic State.

In doing so, Hanabusa and Gabbard were on the losing side of a 273-156 House vote that featured an unusual bipartisan coalition.

Somehow both Republican and Democratic leaders in the usually viciously split U.S. House got together to push through the resolution, but Hawaii’s delegation said "nope."

Gabbard argued that the Obama mission made no sense, was not focused, and there wasn’t even a clear idea of who America and its allies would be fighting.

"This proposed strategy actually reflects a lack of commitment to really destroy ISIL and the other Islamic extremist groups that we are at war with," said Gabbard in a House floor speech.

Hanabusa was even more specific in her condemnation of the Obama plan.

"This kind of unchecked authority on a mission this dangerous is risky, unwarranted, and almost certain to lead to an even deeper involvement in a long-term conflict," Hanabusa said.

"Make no mistake, today’s vote does not simply raise the possibility of war; the United States is already engaged in a war. This authorization just cements our continued involvement," Hanabusa warned.

Obama’s announcement that "our strategy is to degrade and ultimate destroy this terrorist organization," relies on a yet-undefined coalition of countries to also support a military campaign in both Iraq and Syria, all the while also promising that the U.S. military would not enter another Mideast ground war.

The rightness of stopping the murderous extremists of the Islamic State was not an argument in Congress, but an apparent U.S. coalition of the unwilling Middle East countries fractured by their own opposition to each other makes it difficult to see a path to victory.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.