Syria and PR

It may seem strange to try to connect public relations to the debate about intervening in Syria, but the government, like a business, must use PR tactics--the business uses them to sell its products, of course, while the government must keep its citizens appeased. In the end, the tactics are pretty similar much of the time.
President Obama and his cabinet have argued that the bombings they support are to enforce international law and protect innocent civilians. Naturally, these are two relatively popular ideas, and by trying to attach their proposed to such ideas, they attempt to win the public's support. However, their strategy has largely failed, as little support seems to exist for their proposed bombings. Likely this is because 1) the public does not the strikes will be an effective way to do either of the things the Obama Administration has tried to associate it with and 2) the idea of trying to enforce international law and save lives is not enough to overcome Americans' caution toward military intervention in Middle Eastern countries. This traces back to the PR campaign preceding the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which, while successful enough at the time, led to a war that became both costly (in both money and lives) and extremely unpopular. The Obama Administration's PR campaign has some large obstacles to overcome.
More important than the general public is Congress, whose approval Obama has chosen to seek before taking action. This, too, was essentially a PR move, as Obama had taken criticism for intervening in Libya without congressional approval. Congress, however, does not appear much more likely to be won over by the PR campaign than the public at large, for similar reasons, and because of the public's opposition itself. Many representatives have received letters, emails, etc from their constituents--their "target audience"--opposing the bombings. As the representatives must each manage their own PR campaigns to get elected, many will oppose intervening to create an image of themselves as being in touch with their constituents. The point, in any case, is that, like it or not, PR plays an important role in the Syria debate, on all fronts.