U.S. to Obama: Don't do it

WASHINGTON (CNN) As President Barack Obama presses his case for a strike on Syria, a new national survey shows him swimming against a strong tide of public opinion that doesn't want the U.S. to get involved.

The CNN/ORC International poll released Monday shows that even though eight in 10 Americans believe that Bashar al-Assad's regime gassed its own people, a strong majority doesn't want Congress to pass a resolution authorizing a military strike against it.

More than seven in 10 say such a strike would not achieve significant goals for the U.S. and a similar amount say it's not in the national interest for the U.S. to get involved in Syria's bloody two-year-long civil war.

The poll comes at the start of a pivotal week for the president. The Senate is expected to take up the resolution after returning from its monthlong summer recess Monday and Obama does a round of interviews with the major broadcast and cable news outlets. Wolf Blitzer's interview with Obama will air Monday on "The Situation Room" at 6 p.m. ET.

Amid a full-court press of briefings by White House officials, Obama will travel to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to make his case with lawmakers hours before he tries to make his case to the nation in a prime-time address.

"Even as he works members of Congress one by one in small group settings, President Obama's biggest challenge is the American public at large," said John King, CNN chief national correspondent.

"More than seven in 10 Americans simply don't see a military response making any difference. They don't see it doing any good. They're very skeptical, post Iraq and even post Libya and post Egypt, that the United States can do something in a limited way in the Middle East and walk away with a success. And so the skepticism is driving it right now."

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