Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Wednesday that the situation in Syria is beginning to resemble the one that compelled the United States to intervene in Libya and urged President Barack Obama to tell the Syrian people America supports them.
“The violence has turned so indiscriminate in Syria lately that it’s beginning to look like what motivated us to move into Libya because we feared a massacre in Benghazi,” Lieberman said.
The Homeland Security Committee Chairman and Armed Services Committee member did not press for immediate military action in the country or against its leader Bashar al-Assad, but he said the American government and its global allies need to be vigilant of developments there.
“We constantly need to come back to it and reevaluate and the world needs to ask itself, will it stand by and allow a government to not just suppress the rights of its people but to murder them in large numbers,” Lieberman said. “There’s not a military answer to that right now.”
On Wednesday, 15 senators introduced a symbolic resolution condemning human rights abuses in Syria, supporting President Barack Obama’s decision to impose targeted sanctions on the Assad government and urging the president to “speak out directly, and personally, to the people of Syria” to let them know the U.S. stands with them as hundreds reportedly continue to be killed in government protests.
The question of what to do next in Syria, if sanctions and diplomacy do not force Assad to step aside, is on the minds of lawmakers who also recognize that America is militarily engaged in three other Islamic nations.
Both Lieberman, and to an even greater extent Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) — who has advocated arming rebels in Libya — were clear that the current situation on the ground in Syria makes it difficult for U.S. forces to engage successfully. But with so much changing daily in the country and questions mounting about why the U.S. government chooses to get involved directly in one country over another, those believes could shift.
McCain was clear in drawing a distinction between Libya and Syria, however.
“In Libya, there was a semi-organized at least group who were in the fight against Qadhafi’s people. This is a situation where there’s uprisings in cities all over Syria. As a matter of practicality, that it is very difficult — extremely, almost in fact, impossible — to intervene in any way except in the ways we are advocating,” McCain said.
On May 3, Obama extended for a year targeted sanctions against Syria, accusing the government in Demascus of supporting terrorist groups and pursuing missile programs.
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