U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) Tuesday delivered the following
remarks on Syria at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington,
D.C.:
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| Sen. John McCain |
“Thank you, Michael
[Rubin], for that kind introduction.
“It is a pleasure to be
back at AEI. This institute has been leading our debates on public policy,
especially on foreign and defense policy, for decades, and you continue that
leadership today. It is great to be back among so many friends.
“I usually try to begin
my speeches on a lighter note. But when it comes to the situation in Syria, I
could not summon a joke or a laugh if I tried. It is too horrifying, too
heartbreaking, too exasperating.
“For 15 months now, the
Syrian people have faced an onslaught of violence from Bashar al-Assad and his
forces. It is now estimated that as many as 12,000 lives have been lost. Some
suspect the figure is even higher. And there is no end in sight. To the
contrary, Assad appears to be accelerating his fight to the finish.
“Amid all of this
violence, it is important to recognize that the clear trend is toward
escalation, both in the nature and the quantity of the killing. Assad has gone
from using infantry and snipers, to tanks and artillery, to turning loose
special units and plain-clothed militias to massacre men, women, and children,
as happened last month in the town of Houla. We are now seeing a rapid increase
in Assad’s use of helicopter gunships. Whereas his forces once sought to clear
and hold ground, they now appear to be under orders just to kill anyone and
everyone they deem a threat. There is every reason to believe that Assad will
continue to escalate the violence – more massacres, more use of helicopters,
and perhaps worse weapons after that.
“Meanwhile, Assad and
his forces continue to be rearmed by Russia and Iran. There are reports of
Iranian operatives on the ground in Syria to help Assad with the killing, while
Russia apparently continues to ship heavy weapons – including, as Secretary
Clinton has stated, the very helicopter gunships that Assad is currently using
to strafe and bomb civilians. Whether these are new helicopters or old ones
that Assad sent to Russia to be refurbished and have the blood washed off of
them is a distinction without a difference. There are now reports that Russia
has dispatched two ships and a unit of Russian marines to reinforce their naval
base at Tartus – and that they are also delivering additional anti-ship and
anti-aircraft missiles to help defend the Assad regime. Clearly, this is not a
fair fight.
“Amid all of the
violence in Syria, we cannot go numb to the human tragedy there. In April,
thanks to the special efforts of the Turkish government, Senator Joe Lieberman
and I visited a Syrian refugee camp in southern Turkey. I have seen my share of
suffering and death, but the stories that those Syrians told still haunt me –
men who had lost all of their children, women and girls who had been gang
raped, children who had been tortured. And none of this, mind you, was the
random acts of cruelty that sadly occur in war. Syrian army defectors told us
that killing, and rape, and torture was what they were instructed to do as a
tactic of terror and intimidation. So if I get a little emotional when I talk
about Syria, this is why.FHezb
“When it comes to the
Administration’s policy toward Syria, to say they are ‘leading from behind’ is
too generous. That suggests they are leading. They are just behind. In its
desperation, the Administration now appears to be placing its hopes in the
Russian government to push Assad from power in a Yemen-like transition. This is
the same Russian government that continues to provide heavy weapons and moral
support to Assad, that refuses to authorize U.N. sanctions on the regime, and
that even blamed Assad’s recent slaughter of civilians in Houla on the
opposition and foreign powers. The more basic problem with this approach is
that the Administration has already tried it, and Moscow rejected it and shut
down the U.N. Security Council. What has changed to make things different now?
“What the President
does not seem to realize is what President Bill Clinton came to understand in
Bosnia – that a diplomatic resolution in conflicts like these is not possible
until the military balance of power changes on the ground. As long as a
murderous dictator, be it Slobodan Milosevic or Bashar al-Assad, believes he is
winning on the battlefield, he has no incentive to stop fighting and negotiate.
The same is true for the regime’s foreign supporters. For whatever the reasons,
and despite destroying Russia’s reputation in the Arab world, the Russian
government has stuck with Assad for 15 months. What makes us think that
President Putin will change course now, when Assad is still the dominant power
on the ground?
“We are now approaching
a major point of decision. Kofi Annan’s plan, which does not even call for
Assad to go, has been a failure for months. The head of the U.N. monitoring
mission in Syria has suspended its operations for security reasons. Assad’s
increasing reliance on helicopter gunships is giving new impetus to calls for a
no-fly zone. And Russia is unlikely to ever support a policy of regime change
in Syria. The Administration’s approach is being overtaken by events.
“Furthermore, the
opposition inside Syria is increasingly forcing the hand of the civilized world
to intervene on their behalf, because they are growing more effective
militarily. This is no thanks to us. Public reports suggest that some of our
friends in the Middle East are now arming rebel groups in Syria. This may
explain some of the recent reports that opposition forces have been able to
destroy some of Assad’s tanks and prevent his forces from retaking and holding
some key terrain.
“Some will try to
interpret these developments as evidence that the United States should maintain
a hands-off approach to Syria. This is wrong.
“First, the fact that
the opposition in Syria is doing better militarily thanks to external support
seems to validate what many of us have been arguing for months – that
opposition forces have enough organization to be supportable, and that our
support can help them to further improve their organization and command and
control. This is an argument for doing more, not less, to aid rebel fighters in
Syria.
“Second, while it is
good that some foreign military assistance now seems to be reaching the
opposition in Syria, this alone will not be decisive. It will not be sufficient
to end the conflict faster. It may even just prolong it. Nearly every Syrian I
speak with tells me the same thing: The longer this conflict drags on, the more
radicalized it becomes, and the more it turns into a sectarian civil war with
an escalating spiral of violence that Syrians alone cannot stop.
“Finally, the Syrian
opposition needs to know that the United States stands with them, and that we
are willing to take risks to support them when they need it most. Our current
inaction only denies us the opportunity to have influence with the forces in
Syria who will one day inherit the country. And we are ceding that influence to
foreign states that may not always share our interests and our values – or
worse, to extremist groups that are hostile to us. Our lack of involvement in
Syria is not preventing the militarization of the conflict, or lessening the
risk of sectarian violence, or countering the appeal of extremist groups. All
of these events are just happening without us – and without our ability to
influence them.
“In short, the main
reason the United States needs to get more involved in Syria is to help the
opposition end the conflict sooner, while they can still secure an outcome that
is consistent with their goals – and ours. We should do so not simply for
humanitarian reasons, but because it is in our national security interest. In
the words of General James Mattis, the Commander of U.S. Central Command, the
fall of Assad would be the biggest blow to Iran in 25 years.
“Yes, there are risks
to greater involvement in Syria. The opposition is still struggling to get
organized. Al-Qaeda and other extremists are working to hijack the revolution.
And there are already reports of reprisal killings of Alawites. These risks are
real and serious, but the risks of continuing to do nothing are worse.
“If we fail to act, the
consequences are clear. Syria will become a failed state in the heart of the
Middle East, threatening both our ally Israel and our NATO ally Turkey. With or
without Assad, the country will devolve into a full-scale civil war with areas
of ungoverned space that Al-Qaeda and its allies will occupy. Violence and
radicalism will spill even more into Lebanon and Iraq, fueling sectarian
conflicts that are still burning in both countries. Syria will turn into a
battlefield between Sunni and Shia extremists, each backed by foreign powers,
which will ignite sectarian tensions from North Africa to the Gulf and risk a
wider regional conflict. This is the course we are on in Syria, and we must act
now to avoid it.
“The U.S. action I
envision would not be unilateral. It would be multilateral. We would work
closely with Arab and European allies, especially Turkey and our partners in
the Gulf. As in Libya, there would be no boots on the ground. And we would only
intervene at the request of legitimate representatives of the Syrian people.
Our goal would be to help the opposition change the military balance of power
on the ground, thereby creating conditions for an end to the violence, the
departure of Assad and his cronies, and a negotiated transition as soon as
possible.
“To achieve this goal,
we first need to help the Syrian opposition to establish safe havens inside the
country. This is essential for a number of reasons. It is constantly said that
the Syrian opposition is disorganized. That may be true at the national and
international levels. But it is much less true at the local level. To the
contrary, the Revolutionary Councils, Military Councils, and Local Coordination
Committees that have emerged in cities across Syria are increasingly
sophisticated and effective. I have met some of their members and
representatives, and they are among the most impressive figures I have
encountered in the Syrian opposition.
“Nonetheless, if the
Syrian opposition is to succeed, it needs an effective unifying structure of
some kind. It is unlikely that such a structure could be formed in Syria until the
opposition has a safe haven – a place where they can emerge from hiding, gather
together in safety, select national political and military leaders, and
organize themselves better as an alternative governing structure, not just for
the purpose of pushing Assad from power today, but to prepare for the huge
challenge of administering and securing the country once Assad is gone. This is
what the National Transitional Council was able to do in Benghazi, and it is
why, despite major challenges, the transition in Libya is largely succeeding.
“It is less difficult
to imagine today, as opposed to several months ago, how safe havens could be
established in Syria. Indeed, some analysts suggest that the opposition may
already be creating some areas of de facto control in the country – for
example, in parts of Idlib province and areas north of Aleppo along the Turkish
border, and in eastern Syria around Deir ez-Zor. It is quite possible that the
opposition could soon declare parts of Syria to be liberated, as the Libyan
rebels did in Benghazi, and then ask for external support in defending that
territory.
“This is exactly what
we should be helping the opposition to do. Rather than insisting that we cannot
act militarily without a U.N. Security Council resolution, as the Secretary of
Defense recently asserted, we should follow President Clinton’s example from
Kosovo: We should refuse to give Russia and China a veto over our actions, and
instead work outside of the Security Council to shape a coalition of willing
states with a legitimate mandate to intervene militarily in Syria. Many of our
allies are willing to do much more, but only if the United States is with them.
As one regional official told the Wall Street Journal last weekend, the
Turks in particular are looking for, quote, ‘the ironclad backing of the U.S.
and others.’
“We should provide it
to them. We should make U.S. airpower available, along with that of our allies,
as part of an international effort to defend safe areas in Syria and to prevent
Assad’s forces from harassing them, as they will inevitably try to do. Once
Assad’s forces see that they, their tanks, their artillery, their helicopters,
and their other aircraft will pay an awful price if they try to threaten these
opposition safe havens, I suspect they will quickly lose their appetite for it.
“Once defended, these
safe havens could become platforms for increased deliveries of food and
medicine, communications equipment, doctors to treat the wounded, and other
non-lethal assistance. They could also serve as staging areas for armed
opposition groups to receive battlefield intelligence, body armor, and weapons
– from small arms and ammunition, to anti-tank rockets – and to train and
organize themselves more effectively, perhaps with foreign assistance. The goal
would be to expand the reach of these safe havens across more of the country.
“As a final part of
this strategy, we must think about the situation in Syria in a broader
strategic context. The events unfolding from Lebanon to Syria to Iraq are all
part of one connected story. We must be thinking about how we could capitalize
on the fall of the Assad regime in Syria to weaken and marginalize Hezbollah…
to strengthen Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence… to support the
reconciliation of sectarian conflicts through politics not violence... to
increase the pressure on the Maliki government in Iraq to roll back its
authoritarian tendencies and share power more democratically… and to counter
Iran’s subversive hegemonic ambitions in the region. In all of these efforts,
the United States and Turkey share common interests and values, and we need to
be working more closely together than
ever.
“But most of all, what
is needed is American leadership. If there were ever a case that should remind
us that our interests are indivisible from our values, it is Syria. A few days
after the massacre in Houla, the Washington Post interviewed a young
Bosnian man who survived the genocide at Srebrenica in 1995. This is how he
looked at the ongoing slaughter in Syria, quote: ‘It’s bizarre how ‘never
again’ has come to mean ‘again and again,’’ he said. ‘It’s obvious that we live
in a world where Srebrenicas are still possible. What’s happening in Syria
today is almost identical to what happened in Bosnia two decades ago.’
“He could not be more
correct. Syria today is indistinguishable from Bosnia in the 1990s, with one
exception: In Bosnia, President Clinton finally summoned the courage to lead
the world to intervene and stop the killing. It is worth recalling his words upon
ordering military action in Bosnia in 1995: ‘There are times and places,’
President Clinton said, ‘where our leadership can mean the difference between
peace and war, and where we can defend our fundamental values as a people and
serve our most basic, strategic interests. [T]here are still times when America
and America alone can and should make the difference for peace.’
“Those were the words
of a Democratic President who led America to do the right thing in stopping
mass atrocities in Bosnia. And I remember working with my Republican colleague,
Bob Dole, to support President Clinton in that endeavor. The question for
another Democratic President today, and for all of us in positions of
responsibility, is whether we will again answer the desperate pleas for rescue
that are made uniquely to us, as the United States of America – and whether we
will use our great power, as we have done before at our best, not simply to
advance our own interests, but to serve a just cause that is greater than our
interests alone.”
