A cacophony of sound bites pounds Syria

Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki al-Faisal yesterday called for Syrian rebels to be given anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to “level the playing field” in their fight to remove President Bashar al-Assad.

“I’m not in government so I don’t have to be diplomatic. I assume we’re sending weapons and if we were not sending weapons it would be a terrible mistake on our part,” he said in a televised debate at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Prince Turki, co-founder of the King Faisal Foundation and board chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, is the son of the late King Faisal and brother of the kingdom’s foreign minister. He studied at Princeton, Cambridge and Georgetown universities before serving in succession over the years as adviser to royal court, intelligence chief, ambassador to the UK and Ireland, and finally ambassador to the United States.

“You have to level the playing field. Most of the weapons the rebels have come from captured Syrian stocks and defectors bringing their weapons,” he said.

“What is needed are sophisticated, high-level weapons that can bring down planes, can take out tanks at a distance. This is not getting through.”

But Prince Turki said foreign powers should have enough information on the many rebel brigades to ensure weapons only reached non-extremist groups.

Extremists are flowing into Syria from North Africa, Europe and other regions to fight with opposition forces, he said.

“Stop the killing and you won’t have these terrorists, they won’t have any place to go in Syria,” the Saudi prince said. Their presence was predicted from day one in the event of a prolonged crisis. The answer is to channel funds to “the good guys” among the opposition.

"You can select the good guys and give them these means and build their credibility," he said. "Now they don't have the means, and the extremists have the means and are getting the prestige."

“Sixty thousand people have been killed already,” Prince Turki said. “Do we have to wait for double or triple that number to die before Assad leaves?”

Pressed on the thorny issue whether the opposition’s allies are sending weapons into Syria, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said: “The Turkish people have helped the refugees with their humanitarian needs and also the Syrian people to defend themselves by the best means… The Syrian people know what we are doing, how we are helping.”

Panelists agreed there must be a political solution in Syria.

Syria has become a “proxy war” with different countries trying to defend or impose their own interests, said Ghassan Salamé, Dean of The Paris School of International Affairs. Any solution could take many years unless one of two things happens, he said. Either one side must prevail militarily, or a political solution must be imposed on the various players from outside. “I don’t see another way out of this,” he said.

“Europeans, Arabs, Chinese, Russians: we’re all committing a crime by watching people in Syria die,” Salamé said, warning the worst was yet to come if the battle for Damascus begins in earnest. That is likely to be devastating and send many thousands more refugees into Lebanon and Jordan.

Jordan’s Abdullah

Also speaking yesterday in Davos during a panel appearance with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, Jordan’s King Abdullah warned, “Anyone who says that Bashar’s regime has got weeks to live really doesn't know the reality on the ground."

“They still have capability. ... So (I expect) a strong showing for at least the first half of 2013,” he said.

Nonetheless, fears are growing Syria may implode as the protracted conflict gets nastier.

Any fragmentation of the country into small states would be “catastrophic and something that we would be reeling from for decades to come,” Abdullah said.

He also warned of the threat of foreign jihadist fighters now in Syria.

Al-Qaeda has been established there for the past year and is getting support “from certain quarters,” the king said.

“They are a force to contend with, so even if we got the best government into Damascus tomorrow, we have at least two or three years of securing our borders from them coming across and to clean them up,” he said.

Comparing the militant threat with that seen in Afghanistan, Abdullah said: "The new Taliban we are going to have to deal with will be in Syria.”

Abdullah appealed for greater international help for more than 300,000 Syrian refugees who have already fled over the border into Jordan and are suffering in the grip of a cruel winter.

He also urged the stockpiling of humanitarian supplies that could be taken across Syria's borders, to try to keep people from leaving -- and to win hearts and minds.

“If these people start to starve and they don't have fuel and electricity and water, and hospitals are not running, that's when radicalization comes in and take advantage,” the king said.

Henry Kissinger

Richard Nixon, Hafez Assad and Henry Kissinger (syrianhistory.com)

Also touching on Syria in his wide-ranging address to business leaders at the Forum in Davos earlier on Thursday was the Nixon Administration’s secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who brokered the Syria-Israel disengagement agreement with Bashar’s father Hafez Assad in March 1974.

Kissinger called on Washington and Moscow to work together to solve the Syria crisis.

He counseled “an American-Russian understanding as a first step towards defining what the objective is,” adding: “The Syrian problem would best be dealt with internationally by Russia and America not making it a contest of national interest.”

The Syrian conflict, initially seen as a fight of democracy against dictatorship, has transformed into a conflict between various ethnic groups, leaving the international community with a dilemma. “The outside world finds that if it intervenes militarily, it will be in the middle of a vast ethnic conflict; and if it doesn’t intervene militarily, it will be caught in a humanitarian tragedy,” said Kissinger.

While a number of outcomes are possible –- Assad staying in office, a total “Sunnite” victory, or an emergence of a loose federation of various ethnic groups –- what is clear is that “the more the outside world competes, the worse it gets,” he said.

John Kerry

John Kerry, the incoming secretary of state who met several times over the years with Bashar, did not mention Syria in his opening statement at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday.

But when pressed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., about getting more directly involved in helping the Syrian rebels, Kerry said he needs time to understand the situation better.

McCain, part of a bipartisan group of senators which just got back from a trip to the Middle East and visited Syrian refugees camps, told Kerry they feel “an anger and frustration” and believe the United States is indifferent to their suffering.

One Syrian teacher told McCain and the other senators, “This next generation of children will take revenge on those that did not help them.”

McCain added, “We are sowing the wind in Syria and we are going to reap the whirlwind.”

He said, “We can do a lot more, without putting boots on the ground” – such as a no-fly zone – and he complained that “all I get, frankly, from the (Obama) administration is the fall of Assad is, quote, ‘inevitable.’ I agree, but what about what happens in the meantime?”

Another member of the delegation that toured the Middle East, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., complained to Kerry that U.S. humanitarian aid intended for Syrian refugees “has not reached the people on the ground.”

Kerry and McCain at the confirmation hearing

In response to both Coons and McCain, Kerry said “if you have a complete implosion of the state” in Syria after Assad’s fall, it would greatly increase the risk that Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal would fall into the wrong hands.

Asked about the personal bond he once had with Assad, Kerry said there was a moment where Syria reached out to the West but that the moment has long passed.

“Sometimes there are moments where you may be able to get something done in foreign policy, and if the moment somehow doesn’t ripen correctly or get seized, you miss major opportunities,” he said.

"History caught up to us. That never happened. And it's now moot, because he (Assad) has made a set of judgments that are inexcusable, that are reprehensible, and I think is not long for remaining as the head of state in Syria," the senator said. "I think the time is ticking."

Kerry also said: “We need to change Bashar Assad’s calculation. Right now President Assad doesn’t think he’s losing -- and the opposition thinks it is winning.”

Kerry said the goal of U.S. policy is a peaceful transition to a new government.

He said he hoped to confer with the Russians and with others and “increase the readiness of President Assad to see that the die is cast, the handwriting is on the wall….”

“I don’t want inquisitiveness or curiosity about what possibilities might exist with the Russians to be translated into optimism. I don’t have optimism. I have hope,” the senator said.

Coons told Kerry, “We frankly face a very narrow window to make a difference on the ground in support of the opposition.”  

“I get it,” Kerry answered, but he said he was worried about who would control the country if Assad were forced out of power.

Laurent Fabius

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in his annual New Year's address to the press there was no sign the Syria war was going to end anytime soon, in contrast to his prediction last month that the end was near for Assad.

"Things are not moving. The solution we had hoped for, and by that I mean the fall of Bashar and the arrival of the [opposition’s National] Coalition to power, has not happened," he said.

France was the first to recognize the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

Fabius told RFI radio in December "the end is nearing" for Assad. On Thursday, he said international mediation and discussions about the crisis were not getting anywhere.

"There are no recent positive signs," he said.

He said National Coalition leaders and representatives of some 50 nations and organizations would meet in Paris on Monday to discuss how to fulfill previous commitments. He did not elaborate.

McCain pushes for U.S. military leadership on Syria

U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) Tuesday delivered the following remarks on Syria at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, D.C.:

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.”

McCain: The case for U.S. airstrikes in Syria

Sen. John McCain (photo from queerty.com)

REMARKS BY SENATOR JOHN McCAIN ON THE SITUATION IN SYRIA ON THE FLOOR OF THE U.S. SENATE (March 5, 2012)

“After a year of bloodshed, the crisis in Syria has reached a decisive moment.

“It is estimated that more than 7,500 lives have been lost. The United Nations has declared that Syrian security forces are guilty of crimes against humanity, including the indiscriminate shelling of civilians, the execution of defectors, and the widespread torture of prisoners. Bashar Al-Assad is now doing to Homs what his father did to Hama. Aerial photographs procured by Human Rights Watch show a city that has been laid to waste by Assad’s tanks and artillery. A British photographer who was wounded and evacuated from the city described it as ‘a medieval siege and slaughter.’ The kinds of mass atrocities that NATO intervened in Libya to prevent in Benghazi are now a reality in Homs. Indeed, Syria today is the scene of some of the worst state-sponsored violence since Milosevic’s war crimes in the Balkans, or Russia’s annihilation of the Chechen city of Grozny.

“What is all the more astonishing is that Assad’s killing spree has continued despite severe and escalating international pressure against him. His regime is almost completely isolated. It has been expelled from the Arab League, rebuked by the United Nations General Assembly, excoriated by the U.N. Human Rights Council, and abandoned by nearly every country that once maintained diplomatic relations with it. At the same time, Assad’s regime is facing a punishing array of economic sanctions by the United States, the European Union, the Arab League, and others – measures that have targeted the assets of Assad and his henchmen, cut off the Central Bank and other financial institutions, grounded Syria’s cargo flights, and restricted the regime’s ability to sell oil. This has been an impressive international effort, and the Administration deserves a lot of credit for helping to orchestrate it.

“The problem is, the bloodletting continues. Despite a year’s worth of diplomacy backed by sanctions, Assad and his top lieutenants show no signs of giving up and taking the path into foreign exile. To the contrary, they appear to accelerating their fight to the finish. And they are doing so with the shameless support of foreign governments, especially in Russia, China, and Iran. A steady supply of weapons, ammunition, and other assistance is flowing to Assad from Moscow and Tehran, and as the Washington Post reported yesterday, Iranian military and intelligence operatives are likely active in Syria, helping to direct and sharpen the regime’s brutality. The Security Council is totally shut down as an avenue for increased pressure, and the recently convened Friends of Syria contact group, while a good step in principle, produced mostly rhetoric but precious little action when it met last month in Tunisia. Unfortunately, with each passing day, the international response to Assad’s atrocities is being overtaken by events on the ground in Syria.

“Some countries are finally beginning to acknowledge this reality, as well as its implications. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are calling for arming opposition forces in Syria. The newly-elected Kuwaiti parliament has called on their government to do the same. Last week, the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, Admiral James Stavridis, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that providing arms to opposition forces in Syria could help them shift the balance of power against Assad. Most importantly, Syrians themselves are increasingly calling for international military involvement. The opposition Syrian National Council recently announced that it is establishing a military bureau to channel weapons and other assistance to the Free Syrian Army and armed groups inside the country. Other members of the Council are demanding a more robust intervention.

“To be sure, there are legitimate questions about the efficacy of military options in Syria, and equally legitimate concerns about their risks and uncertainties. It is understandable that the Administration is reluctant to move beyond diplomacy and sanctions. Unfortunately, this policy is increasingly disconnected from the dire conditions on the ground in Syria, which has become a full-blown state of armed conflict. In the face of this new reality, the Administration’s approach to Syria is starting to look more like a hope than a strategy. So, too, does their continued insistence that Assad’s fall is ‘inevitable.’ Tell that to the people of Homs. Tell that to the people of Idlib, or Hama, or the other cities that Assad’s forces are now moving against. Nothing in this world is pre-determined. And claims about the inevitability of events can often be a convenient way to abdicate responsibility.

“But even if we do assume that Assad will ultimately fall, that may still take a really long time. In recent testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said that if the status quo persists, Assad could hang on for months, possibly longer. And that was before Homs fell. So just to be clear: Even under the best-case scenario for the current policy, the cost of success will likely be months of continued bloodshed and thousands of additional lives lost. Is this morally acceptable to us? I believe it should not be.

“In addition to the moral and humanitarian interests at stake in Syria, what is just as compelling, if not more so, are the strategic and geopolitical interests. Put simply, the United States has a clear national security interest in stopping the violence in Syria and forcing Assad to leave power. In this way, Syria is very different than Libya: The stakes are far higher, both for America and some of our closest allies.

“This regime in Syria serves as the main forward operating base of the Iranian regime in the heart of the Arab world. It has supported Palestinian terrorist groups and funneled arms of all kinds, including tens of thousands of rockets, to Hezbollah in Lebanon. It remains a committed enemy of Israel. It has large stockpiles of chemical weapons and materials and has sought to develop a nuclear weapons capability. It was the primary gateway for the countless foreign fighters who infiltrated into Iraq and killed our troops. Assad and his lieutenants have the blood of hundreds of Americans on their hands. Many in Washington fear that what comes after Assad might be worse. How could it be any worse than this?

“The end of the Assad regime would sever Hezbollah’s lifeline to Iran, eliminate a long-standing threat to Israel, bolster Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence, and inflict a strategic defeat on the Iranian regime. It would be a geopolitical success of the first order. More than all of the compelling moral and humanitarian reasons, this is why Assad cannot be allowed to succeed and remain in power: We have a clear national security interest in his defeat. And that alone should incline us to tolerate a large degree of risk in order to see that this goal is achieved.

“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 President has characterized the prevention of mass atrocities as, quote, ‘a core national security interest.’ He has made it the objective of the United States that the killing in Syria must stop, and that Assad must go. He has committed the prestige and credibility of our nation to that goal, and it is the right goal. 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.

“For this reason, the time has come for a new policy. As we continue to isolate Assad diplomatically and economically, we should work with our closest friends and allies to support opposition groups inside Syria, both political and military, to help them organize themselves into a more cohesive and effective force that can put an end to the bloodshed and force Assad and his loyalists to leave power. Rather than closing off the prospects for some kind of a negotiated transition that is acceptable to the Syrian opposition, foreign military intervention is now the necessary factor to reinforce this option. Assad needs to know that he will not win.

“What opposition groups in Syria need most urgently is relief from Assad’s tank and artillery sieges in the many cities that are still contested. Homs is lost for now, but Idlib, and Hama, and Qusayr, and Deraa, and other cities in Syria could still be saved. But time is running out. Assad’s forces are on the march. Providing military assistance to the Free Syrian Army and other opposition groups is necessary, but at this late hour, that alone will not be sufficient to stop the slaughter and save innocent lives. The only realistic way to do so is with foreign airpower.

“Therefore, at the request of the Syrian National Council, the Free Syrian Army, and Local Coordinating Committees inside the country, 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. To be clear: This will require the United States to suppress enemy air defenses in at least part of the country.

“The ultimate goal of airstrikes should be to establish and defend safe havens in Syria, especially in the north, in which opposition forces can organize and plan their political and military activities against Assad. These safe havens could serve as platforms for the delivery of humanitarian and military assistance – including weapons and ammunition, body armor and other personal protective equipment, tactical intelligence, secure communications equipment, food and water, and medical supplies. These safe havens could also help the Free Syrian Army and other armed groups in Syria to train and organize themselves into more cohesive and effective military forces, likely with the assistance of foreign partners.

“The benefit for the United States in helping to lead this effort directly is that it would allow us to better empower those Syrian groups that share our interests – those groups that reject Al-Qaeda and the Iranian regime, and commit to the goal of an inclusive democratic transition, as called for by the Syrian National Council. If we stand on the sidelines, others will try to pick winners, and this will not always be to our liking or in our interest. This does that mean the United States should go it alone. We should not. We should seek the active involvement of key Arab partners such as Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Jordan, and Qatar – and willing allies in the E.U. and NATO, the most important of which in this case is Turkey.

“There will be no U.N. Security Council mandate for such an operation. Russia and China took that option off the table long ago. But let’s not forget: NATO took military action to save Kosovo in 1999 without formal U.N. authorization. There is no reason why the Arab League, or NATO, or a leading coalition within the Friends of Syria contact group, or all of them speaking in unison, could not provide a similar international mandate for military measures to save Syria today.

“Could such a mandate be gotten? I believe it could be. Foreign capitals across the world are looking to the United States to lead, especially now that the situation in Syria has become an armed conflict. But what they see is an Administration still hedging its bets – on the one hand, insisting that Assad’s fall is inevitable, but on the other, unwilling even to threaten more assertive actions that could make it so.

“The rhetoric out of NATO has been much more self-defeating. Far from making it clear to Assad that all options are on the table, key alliance leaders are going out of their way to publicly take options off the table. Last week, the Secretary-General of NATO, Mr. Rasmussen, said that the alliance has not even discussed the possibility of NATO action in Syria – saying, quote, ‘I don’t envision such a role for the alliance.’ The following day, the Supreme Allied Commander, Admiral James Stavridis, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that NATO has done no contingency planning – none – for potential military operations in Syria.

“That is not how NATO approached Bosnia. Or Kosovo. Or Libya. Is it now the policy of NATO – or the United States, for that matter – to tell the perpetrators of mass atrocities, in Syria or elsewhere, that they can go on killing innocent civilians by the hundreds or thousands, and the greatest alliance in history will not even bother to conduct any planning about how we might stop them? Is that NATO’s policy now? Is that our policy? Because that is the practical effect of this kind of rhetoric. It gives Assad and his foreign allies a green light for greater brutality.

“Not surprisingly, many countries, especially Syria’s neighbors, are also hedging their bets on the outcome in Syria. They think Assad will go, but they are not yet prepared to put all of their chips on that bet – even less so now that Assad’s forces have broken Homs and seem to be gaining momentum. There is only one nation that can alter this dynamic, and that is us. The President must state unequivocally that under no circumstances will Assad be allowed to finish what he has started, that there is no future in which Assad and his lieutenants will remain in control of Syria, and that the United States is prepared to use the full weight of our airpower to make it so. It is only when we have clearly and completely committed ourselves that we can expect other countries to do the same. Only then would we see what is really possible in winning international support to stop the killing in Syria.

“Are there dangers, and risks, and uncertainties in this approach? Absolutely. There are no ideal options in Syria. All of them contain significant risk. Many people will be quick to raise concerns about the course of action I am proposing. Many of these concerns have merit, but none so much that they should keep us from acting.

“For example, we continue to hear it said that we should not assist the opposition in Syria militarily because we don’t know who these people are. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated this argument just last week, adding that we could end up helping Al-Qaeda or Hamas. It is possible the Administration does not know much about the armed opposition in Syria, but how much effort have they really made to find out – to meet and engage these people directly? Not much, it appears.

“Instead, much of the best information we have about the armed resistance in Syria is thanks to courageous journalists, some of whom have given their lives to tell the story of the Syrian people. One of those journalists is a reporter working for Al-Jazeera named Nir Rosen, who spent months in the country, including much time with the armed opposition. Here is how he describes them in a recent interview:  

“‘The regime and its supporters describe the opposition, especially the armed opposition, as Salafis, Jihadists, Muslim Brotherhood supporters, al-Qaeda and terrorists. This is not true, but it’s worth noting that all the fighters I met … were Sunni Muslims, and most were pious. They fight for a multitude of reasons: for their friends, for their neighborhoods, for their villages, for their province, for revenge, for self-defense, for dignity, for their brethren in other parts of the country who are also fighting. They do not read religious literature or listen to sermons. Their views on Islam are consistent with the general attitudes of Syrian Sunni society, which is conservative and religious.  

“‘Because there are many small groups in the armed opposition, it is difficult to describe their ideology in general terms. The Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood ideologies are not important in Syria and do not play a significant role in the revolution. But most Syrian Sunnis taking part in the uprising are themselves devout.’

“He could just as well have been describing average citizens in Egypt, or Libya, or Tunisia, or other nations in the region. So we should be a little more careful before we embrace the Assad regime’s propaganda about the opposition in Syria. We certainly should not let these misconceptions cause us to keep the armed resistance in Syria at arm’s length, because that is just self-defeating. And I can assure you that Al-Qaeda is not pursuing the same policy. They are eager to try to hijack the Syrian revolution, just as they have tried to hijack the Arab Spring movements in Egypt, and Tunisia, and Libya, and elsewhere. They are trying, but so far, they are failing. The people of these countries are broadly rejecting everything Al-Qaeda stands for. They are not eager to trade secular tyranny for theocratic tyranny.

“The other reason Al-Qaeda is failing in Tunisia, and Egypt, and Libya is because the community of nations, especially the United States, has supported them. We are giving them a better alternative. The surest way for Al-Qaeda to gain a foothold in Syria is for us to turn our backs on those brave Syrians who are fighting to defend themselves. After all, Sunni Iraqis were willing to ally with Al-Qaeda when they felt desperate enough. But when America gave them a better alternative, they turned their guns on Al-Qaeda. Why should it be different in Syria?

“Another objection to providing military assistance to the Syrian opposition is that the conflict has become a sectarian civil war, and our intervention would enable the Sunni majority to take a bloody and indiscriminate revenge against the Alawite minority. This is a serious and legitimate concern, and it is only growing worse the longer the conflict goes on. As we saw in Iraq, or Lebanon before it, time favors the hard-liners in a conflict like this. The suffering of Sunnis at the hands of Assad only stokes the temptation for revenge, which in turn only deepens fears among the Alawites, and strengthens their incentive to keep fighting. For this reason alone, it is all the more compelling to find a way to end the bloodshed as soon as possible.

“Furthermore, the risks of sectarian conflict will exist in Syria whether we get more involved or not. And we will at least have some ability to try to mitigate these risks if we work to assist the armed opposition now. That will at least help us to know them better, and to establish some trust and exercise some influence with them, because we took their side when they needed it most. We should not overstate the potential influence we could gain with opposition groups inside Syria, but it will only diminish the longer we wait to offer them meaningful support. And what we can say for certain is that we will have no influence whatsoever with these people if they feel we abandoned them. This is a real moral dilemma, but we cannot allow the opposition in Syria to be crushed at present while we worry about the future.

“We also hear it said, including by the Administration, that we should not contribute to the militarization of the conflict. If only Russia and Iran shared that sentiment. Instead, they are shamelessly fueling Assad’s killing machine. We need to deal with reality as it is, not as we wish it to be – and the reality in Syria today is largely a one-sided fight where the aggressors are not lacking for military means and zeal.

“Indeed, Assad appears to be fully committed to crushing the opposition at all costs. Iran and Russia appear to be fully committed to helping him do it. The many Syrians who have taken up arms to defend themselves and their communities appear to be fully committed to acquiring the necessary weapons to resist Assad. And leading Arab states appear increasingly committed to providing those weapons. The only ones who seem overly concerned about a militarization of the conflict are the United States and some of our allies. The time has come to ask a different question: Who do we want to win in Syria – our friends or our enemies?

“There are always plenty of reasons not to do something, and we can list them clearly in the case of Syria. We know the opposition is divided. We know the armed resistance inside the country lacks cohesion or command and control. We know that some elements of the opposition may sympathize with violent extremist ideologies or harbor dark thoughts of sectarian revenge. We know that many of Syria’s immediate neighbors remain cautious about taking overly provocative actions that could undermine Assad. And we know the American people are weary of conflict – justifiably so – and would rather focus on domestic problems.

“These are realities, but while we are compelled to acknowledge them, we are not condemned to accept them forever. With resolve, principled leadership, and wise policy, we can shape better realities. That is what the Syrian people have done.

“By no rational calculation should this uprising against Assad still be going on. The Syrian people are outmatched. They are outgunned. They are lacking for food, and water, and other basic needs. They are confronting a regime whose disregard for human dignity and capacity for sheer savagery is limitless. For an entire year, the Syrian people have faced death, and those unspeakable things worse than death, and still they have not given up. Still they take to the streets to protest peacefully for justice. Still they carry on their fight. And they do so on behalf of many of the same universal values we share, and many of the same interests as well.

“These people are our allies. They want many of the same things we do. They have expanded the boundaries of what everyone thought was possible in Syria. They have earned our respect, and now they need our support to finish what they started. The Syrian people deserve to succeed, and shame on us if we fail to help them.”