- By Olivier Knox | The Ticket – 3 hrs ago
-
(Amr Nabil/AP)Saying
"the time has come for a new policy" in Syria, veteran Republican Sen.
John McCain called Monday for U.S.-led airstrikes on President Bashar
al-Assad's forces in an effort to protect civilians from a bloody
yearlong crackdown by the regime.
"The
United States should lead an international effort to protect key
population centers in Syria, especially in the north, through airstrikes
on Assad's forces," McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed
Services Committee, said in a speech on the Senate floor.
"To
be clear: This will require the United States to suppress enemy air
defense in at least part of the country," said McCain, who has
repeatedly called in recent weeks and months for a stepped-up U.S.
effort to protect Syrian civilians.
Assad
has waged a deadly crackdown on opposition to his regime, drawing
fierce criticism from Washington and other world powers, though Moscow
and Beijing blocked a UN Security Council resolution aimed at halting
the bloodshed.
The White House has sharply criticized Russia and China, but has resisted calls to arm the Syrian opposition as premature.
McCain
said "the ultimate goal of airstrikes" would be "to establish and
defend safe havens in Syria" where Assad's outgunned opponents "can
organize and plan their political and military activities" and points
for the delivery of humanitarian and military aid "including weapons and
ammunition, body armor and other personal protective equipment,
tactical intelligence, secure communications equipment, food and water,
and medical supplies.
"After a year of bloodshed, the crisis in Syria has reached a decisive moment," McCain said. "Increasingly,
the question for U.S. policy is not whether foreign forces will
intervene militarily in Syria. We can be confident that Syria's
neighbors will do so eventually, if they have not already."
"Some
kind of intervention will happen, with us or without us. So the real
question for U.S. policy is whether we will participate in this next
phase of the conflict in Syria, and thereby increase our ability to
shape an outcome that is beneficial to the Syrian people, and to us. I
believe we must," the Arizona Republican said.
"However,
it is not clear that the present policy can succeed. If Assad manages
to cling to power—or even if he manages to sustain his slaughter for
months to come, with all of the human and geopolitical costs that
entails—it would be a strategic and moral defeat for the United States.
We cannot, we must not, allow this to happen," McCain said.
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