Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman said that he “expects the White House to provide answers to members’ questions and take the lead on any whipping effort.” Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), whose aides and allies run the whip process, isn’t yet in favor of Obama’s request for military authority in Syria.

Several lawmakers and aides who have been canvassing support say that nearly 80 percent of the House Republican Conference is, to some degree, opposed to launching strikes in Syria. Informal counts by Obama allies show that support in Congress for Obama’s plans is in the low dozens. …

Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) — a member of the GOP whip team and a natural ally of Boehner’s as a former Army attorney who sits on the Intelligence committee — told POLITICO leadership’s approval of the mission didn’t move him at all. He said that the U.S. has “the keys to escalate [the conflict] unilaterally.”

“I really do believe when you have an engagement confined within the boarders of Syria as bad as it could imaginably be to engage, you’re really really asking for it to spill outside the borders,” Rooney said in an interview Tuesday. “If I’m Assad and I get attacked, Tel Aviv is in my scopes.”