This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, August 29th, 2013.

I'm Caleb Brown. The push for war in Syria appears to be losing some steam as the American public and Congress

continue to be opposed to the exercise.

Doug Bandau is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, he argues many Obama administration

officials may have jumped the gun in pushing for an attack.

The way this typically unfolds whenever we go to war, I feel like every time you have the president and various of his cabinet officials making sort of pronouncements

about no decision has been made.

We haven't decided what we're going to do precisely, but right now it seems

a little different.

And do you sense that and if so, what? what is different? Well the administration seems to reverse the process

They started out with very strong statements secretary carry in particular we know without any doubt any doubt the Assad government did this, we have to take action,

discussions about ships moving into the Eastern Mediterranean.

A real presumption, the bombing might start even late in the week.

And then all of a sudden the president says no decision has been made.

So it looks to me like some of his aides may have gotten out in front of him,

and also may reflect that they're looking around and suddenly finding themselves

rather exposed.

The British government, which had been cheerleading for this, to suddenly step back and

said, well, maybe not, we better wait, we're going to have to have a vote. You know, the Arab League is not supporting. Maybe not

supporting it.

They don't find much support on Capitol Hill.

The American people say they don't want it.

...