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US Senator Rubio discusses Syria during Israel visit
(YnetNews/Reuters) – The United States must ensure that a new Syrian leadership is well armed and can run the country after the fall of President Bashar Assad, US Senator Marco Rubio said on his visit to Israel.
The Florida Republican, who is seen as a rising star on the right flank of his party, and who gave the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, spoke about Syria and Iraq during a visit to Israel. Rubio, 41, told a news conference:
“Our hope is to continue to … (identify) responsible actors that will be responsible not just in this conflict but in the aftermath of this conflict and empower them so that they will become the best-organized, the best-funded, the best-armed, the best-equipped and the most capable post-Assad force on the ground in Syria.”
Rubio added that there should not be a repeat of the situation in Libya where rival militias wreaked havoc because no single force had been supported to take control after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.
“Our hope is to learn … from the Libyan experience where that didn’t happen. We had all these dispersed militias (which) to this day have not come under central control,” Rubio said.
Rubio was an active campaigner for Mitt Romney’s failed bid to unseat US President Barack Obama, who won a second term in November. Rubio nevertheless spoke in support of Obama’s upcoming trip to the region towards the end of March and said there was cross-party support on foreign policy issues.
Rubio outlined those issues as the perceived Iranian nuclear threat, the security of Israel and peacemaking with the Palestinians.
(Joshua Landis) – Not only is the Obama administration no longer convinced that Syria’s armed rebellion is about to topple President Bashar Al Assad, a rebel military victory does not even appear to be Washington’s preferred outcome.
A little over a year ago, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the Assad regime as “a dead man walking”, and President Barack Obama expressed confidence, in his 2012 State of the Union address, that “the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change can’t be reversed”.
This year, by contrast, Syria barely rated a mention in the same speech, with Mr Obama vowing only to “keep the pressure on the Syrian regime … and support opposition leaders that respect the rights of every Syrian”.
The rebels clearly can’t win the war with the current level of support being offered by outside powers. Moreover, Mr Obama has reportedly dismissed proposals from within in his administration for arming insurgents, and Monday’s European Union rebuff of efforts by the UK, France and Italy to lift an embargo on arming the rebels reinforced the sense of western reluctance to invest in a rebel military victory.
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The policy logic underlying these decisions was articulated on Sunday by new Secretary of State John Kerry, who said his goal in Syria was “to see us have a negotiated outcome and minimise the violence”. He admitted that achieving that goal remained exceedingly difficult, but insisted that it was in the best interests of “the Syrian people, and the region and the world, to make every effort to explore ways to achieve that negotiated outcome”.
Pursuing a military solution, Mr Kerry warned, risked the “implosion” of the Syrian state, with far greater regional risks.
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