LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
—Syrian rebels shot down a military helicopter in the country’s east, killing eight government troops on board as President Bashar Assad’s troops battled opposition forces inside a sprawling military air base in the north for the second straight day, activists said Monday.
—Sen. Bob Menendez. D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced legislation Monday that would allow for arms, military training and non-lethal aid to Syrian rebel groups that meet certain criteria on human rights and are note linked to terrorism.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON SYRIA
Q: What is the main argument of advocates for greater American involvement in Syria?
A: Supporters of intervention argue that the United States and its allies have an obligation both to buttress the fortunes of the rebels and to protect innocent civilians from the escalating bloodshed. Since fighting erupted in March 2011, more than 70,000 Syrian civilians are estimated to have died in the conflict. Two Republican senators, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, advocate providing the rebels with lethal weaponry, enforcing no-fly zones to create humanitarian corridors for refugees, and carrying out offshore airstrikes to degrade Syria's air force.
Q: Why has Obama been reluctant so far?
A: Obama, who opened his 2008 bid for the White House with his opposition to what he called a "dumb war" in Iraq, is deeply skeptical that American military involvement will resolve a Syrian civil war that has grown increasingly sectarian. Though he is more open to arming the rebels than he was before reports that President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons, he continues to doubt that this would alter the equation on the ground. The president is also wary of arming rebel groups, given that an increasing number of them are tied to radical Islamist groups, including al-Qaida. And aside from hawks like McCain, there is little appetite for another Middle East war, either on Capitol Hill or among the public.
Q: Will Israel's airstrikes transform Syria's civil war into a regional conflagration?
A: Syria has threatened Israel with unspecified retaliation for the attacks, though Israeli and American officials doubt that Assad, consumed with his own battle for survival, will do more than issue public condemnations. Still, the strikes underscore that the Syrian conflict is already international: Israel's military was targeting weapons from Iran that were being funneled through Syria to Hezbollah.
New York Times
Israel’s willingness to hit Syrian targets it sees as threats to its existence has complicated the Obama administration’s internal debate over arming President Bashar Assad’s foes and may change the way the U.S. approaches allies as it tries to boost the rebels.
As Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Russia on Monday for talks with the Assad regime’s most powerful ally, the administration remained tight-lipped on both Israel’s weekend air strikes and their implications for Washington decision-making.
Israeli warplanes targeted caches of Iranian missiles that were bound via Syria for Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant group that has threatened Israel. The weapons would have allowed Hezbollah to strike Tel Aviv and as far as southern Israel from inside Lebanese territory.
Still, Israel’s actions put Damascus and Moscow on notice that the U.S. and its allies may not wait for an international green light to become more actively engaged. The administration said last week it was rethinking its opposition to arming the rebels or taking other aggressive steps to turn the tide of the two-year-old civil war toward the rebels.
At the same time, Israeli involvement in the war carries risks. Instead of prodding Russia into calling for Assad’s ouster, it could bring greater Arab sympathy for Assad and prompt deeper involvement by his allies, Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Although Israel has not officially acknowledged it carried out the airstrikes, Syrian officials on Monday were blaming Israel, calling it a “declaration of war” that would cause the Jewish state to “suffer.”
Russia, alongside China, has blocked U.S.-led efforts three times at the United Nations to pressure Assad into stepping down. Officials said Kerry hopes to change Moscow’s thinking with two new arguments: American threats to arm the Syrian rebels and evidence of chemical weapon attacks by the Assad regime.
Kerry, U.S. officials said Monday, hopes that may be enough to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to support, or at least not veto, a fresh effort to impose UN sanctions on Syria if Assad doesn’t begin transition talks with the opposition.
“We have consistently, in our conversations with the Russians and others, pointed clearly to Assad’s behavior as proof that further support for the regime is not in the interest of the Syrian people or in the interest of the countries that have in the past supported Assad,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
U.S. officials said the administration doesn’t believe the weekend activity will force President Barack Obama’s hand, noting that the main American concern is the use of chemical weapons by Assad, while Israel’s top concern is conventional weapons falling into the hands of its enemies.
The chemical weapons argument is now under surprising attack, with former war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte saying over the weekend she and fellow members of a four-member U.N. human rights panel had indications the nerve agent sarin was used by Syrian rebel forces, but not by government forces.
Despite a clarification Monday from the UN that it is has not yet made any definitive determination on chemical weapons use, Washington pushed back, saying it is highly likely that the Assad regime, and not the rebels, has been behind any chemical weapons use in Syria.
“We are highly skeptical of suggestions that the opposition could have or did use chemical weapons,” Carney said. “We find it highly likely that any chemical weapon use that has taken place in Syria was done by the Assad regime. And that remains our position.”
The State Department said the administration continues to believe that Syria’s large chemical weapons stockpiles remain securely in the regime’s control.
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