Senators slam Obama’s Syria sellout
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| U.S. Sen. Bob Corker and Russian Premier Dmitry Medvedev |
(With
news agencies) -- Russia hopes an
international peace conference on Syria will be held by year’s end, Prime
Minister Dmitry Medvedev said, despite reported differences with the United
States over opposition representation.
He appealed to
both sides in Syria's civil war to compromise and criticized the opposition for
demanding assurances of President Bashar al-Assad's departure as a condition
for the so-called Geneva-2 talks.
"I hope it
will be possible to hold the conference by the end of this year but we
understand that the influence of all sides taking part is limited,"
Medvedev told Reuters in an interview late on Thursday.
"It depends
to a great extent on the positions of the Syrian sides. We're pushing them
towards this, and I hope everyone who talks to different circles in Syria will
do the same," he said.
"It's a
difficult process and everyone must compromise, including opposition leaders
and the Syrian government, of course."
Russia has been
Assad's most powerful backer during the two-and-a-half-year-old conflict,
delivering weapons, blocking three UN Security Council resolutions meant to
pressure him and saying his exit cannot be a precondition for peace talks.
U.S., Russian
and UN envoys are to meet in Geneva on Tuesday as part of preparations for the
long-delayed conference, which Russia and the United States first proposed in
May.
The latest target
date for the talks, November 23, looks likely to be pushed back and sources
close to the negotiations say a main point of contention is the role of the
Western-backed opposition coalition.
Assad Needs
Guarantees
Western and Gulf Arab countries opposed to
Assad say the Geneva talks should be between a "single delegation of the
Syrian regime and a single delegation of the opposition" led by the
coalition.
Russia sees the
coalition as just one part of the opposition and has suggested that several
delegations, including Damascus-based figures tolerated by the government,
could represent Assad's enemies.
"I think
that the ideas that are sometimes put forward - let's exclude President Assad
and then agree on everything - are unrealistic as long as Assad is in power,"
Medvedev said.
"He's not
mad. He must receive some kind of guarantees or, in any case, some kind of
proposals on the development of political dialogue in Syria itself, on possible
elections, on his personal fate."
Assad suggested
last month that he could seek re-election in a vote scheduled for next year.
Medvedev said
Assad might be worried by the fates suffered by Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak - who was overthrown and put on trial - and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi,
who met a grisly death after being ousted from power.
"You have
to agree that when he recalls the fate of President Mubarak or Colonel Muammar
Gaddafi ... his mood probably doesn't get any better," Medvedev said.
"So you can't just say 'get out and then we'll agree everything'."
Sen. Bob Corker
In response to U.S. Ambassador to
Syria Robert Ford's testimony defending the Obama administration's slow
delivery of long-promised aid to moderate forces in Syria, U.S. Senator Bob
Corker, R-Tenn., ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Thursday
called the lack of U.S. support for the opposition an
"embarrassment," arguing that with Russia's hands "now on the
steering wheel" in Syria, the U.S. lacks a strategy for resolving the
conflict or for the region as whole, which is causing America's allies to
question U.S. "reliability."
The hearing
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came as the prospects for
Geneva-2 appear increasingly gloomy. The only positive note struck at the
hearing was about progress on the U.S.-Russia plan to remove Assad’s chemical
weapons.
Republican
senators blasted the administration for striking a deal with chief Assad ally
Russia on chemical weapons when there’s no letup to the killings that occur
daily by conventional means.
“Everybody
watching understands that, in essence, we’ve thrown out any real strategy there
and are just trying to figure out a way out of this,” said Sen. Corker. “We’ve
empowered Assad; we’ve weakened ourselves relative to other issues in the
Middle East.”
Corker
added, "Let's face it
guys: what really happened when the Russian offer came forth, it was less about
seizing an opportunity and it was more about our country not having the stomach
to follow through on a strategy over the longer term relative to Syria."
“There
is no strategy right now for the opposition. None. There is no strategy,”
Corker said. “And for that reason there’s unlikely to be a very successful
Geneva 2 conference, because who is it that we’re going to be dealing with? Who
is it that we’re going to be bringing to the table?”
Sen. Robert
Menendez (D-N.J.), the committee chairman, took aim at the State Department’s
year-old effort to organize a peace conference in Geneva.
“While the
international community holds meetings about meetings, the Assad regime
continues its brutal assault on the Syrian people, backed by Iran, Russia and
Hezbollah,” Menendez said.
Using loaded
language such as “feckless” and “abandonment” to describe U.S. policy, senators
quizzed the diplomats and experts before them, not only on the obstacles
blocking the Geneva process, but also on difficulties in the chemical weapons
removal efforts.
They also asked
about the reasons behind America’s failure to deliver on promised aid to the
opposition.
One particularly
testy exchange occurred between Corker, the panel’s ranking Republican, and
Ambassador Ford, who was recalled in 2011 amid safety concerns. Corker
suggested that Ford must be “incredibly embarrassed at where we are” on Syria
and, his voice rising, demanded of the envoy: “Do you feel good about what our
country is doing with the opposition right now?”
Ford, visibly
flustered, replied: “There isn’t a person on my team at the State Department
who doesn’t feel frustrated – frustrated – by the Syrian problem in general.
But I have to say we do provide support to help them against the regime.”
Sen. John
McCain
Sen. John
McCain, R-Ariz., long a proponent of some form of military intervention to tip
the war in the rebels’ favor, had the harshest criticism for the Obama
Administration’s approach. He complained about U.S. diplomats bragging about
sending trucks – some pickups from the U.S. were just delivered to the rebel
command – at a time when Iran and Russia make sure Assad’s arsenals are full.
McCain said the
administration had lodged the U.S. in an “Orwellian situation” in which it was
working closely with Russia to dismantle the chemical arsenal but turning a
blind eye to the conventional weapons Moscow sent into Syria.
He delivered a blistering criticism of America’s Syria policy,
calling it “a shameful chapter in American history.” McCain said he understood
why Saudi Arabia had been publicly feuding with the United States over what it
views as America’s negligence.
“The reason the Saudis have divorced themselves from the United
States of America is because of what you just articulated to Sen. Corker —
trucks,” he said to Ford. “That’s a great thing, trucks, as shiploads of
weapons come in to the Russian port, as plane load after plane load lands and
provides weapons — all kinds of lethal weapons. And we’re proud of the fact
that we gave them trucks,” he said.
"You continue to call this a civil war, Ambassador Ford,"
said McCain. "This isn't a civil war anymore; this is a regional conflict.
It's spread to Iraq. We now have al-Qaeda resurgence in Iraq. It's
destabilizing Jordan. Iran is all in. Hezbollah has 5,000 troops there. For you
to describe this as a quote, 'civil war,' of course, is a gross distortion of
the facts, which again makes many of us question your fundamental strategy
because you are — you don't describe the realities on the ground."
McCain was not satisfied, saying Assad's killing of civilians
remained unchecked.
"Come on. ...The fact is that he was about to be toppled a year
ago, or over a year ago. Then Hezbollah came in. Then the Russians stepped up
their effort. Then the Iranian Revolutionary Guard intervened in what you call
a, quote, 'civil war,' and he turned the tide. And he continues to maintain his
position of power and slaughtering innocent Syrian civilians. And you are relying
on a Geneva conference, right?"
The senators also received a grim
update on the human toll – a death tally that’s tripled in the past year to
100,000 dead and 2 million refugees, turning a national crisis regional. In
addition, 6.8 million people need help, the equivalent of the combined
populations of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Connecticut.
“Behind these jarring statistics is
the real toll on the Syrian people: the kids who haven’t gone to school for two
years, the women who have endured rape and abuse, and the 5 million internally
displaced Syrians who don’t have a place to live or enough to eat,” said Nancy
Lindborg, the assistant administrator for democracy, conflict and humanitarian
assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
