WASHINGTON - Lawmakers in both parties on Sunday urged President Barack Obama to take stronger action in the Syrian civil war, with some Republicans calling for Obama to arm rebel troops and possibly establish a no-fly zone, and some Democrats urging the administration to step up humanitarian assistance.
The lawmakers’ remarks, on the Sunday morning television talk shows that are a public-policy staple in the capital, came after revelations that the Syrian leader, Bashar Assad, had likely used chemical weapons against his own people. Obama has said that the use of such weapons would be a “red line” that would prompt a U.S. response and said Friday that any use of chemical weapons by Syria would be “a game changer.”
But just what the response should be seemed a matter of debate Sunday. Republicans and Democrats agreed that the U.S. should not send in ground troops, but beyond that, they, like the White House, seemed to be wrestling with what course the administration should take and what role other countries ought to play.
“The president has laid down the line, and it can’t be a dotted line. It can’t be anything other than a red line,” said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich, on ABC’s This Week. “And more than just Syria, Iran is paying attention to this. North Korea is paying attention to this.”
Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, Republicans who tend to see eye to eye on national security matters, both said they opposed putting “boots on the ground” in Syria.
McCain, who has called for establishing a no-fly zone to neutralize Syria’s air defenses, told David Gregory, the host of Meet the Press on NBC, that “the worst thing the United States could do right now is put boots on the ground in Syria - that would turn the people against us.”
McCain added that the Obama administration doesn’t need to be sure that Assad has used chemical weapons against his own people before establishing a no-fly zone and arming rebel forces.
The atrocities already committed by Assad are justification enough for such action, he said.
However, a no-fly zone might not be easy to implement over “very sophisticated” Syria, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on ABC’s This Week.
Graham, in particular, criticized the Obama administration for what he characterized as an overly cautious response, providing only nonlethal aid to rebel forces. He warned that inaction in Syria would have dire consequences across the Middle East by sending a message to Iran that the U.S. will tolerate a nuclear buildup in that country.
“If we keep this hands-off approach to Syria, this indecisive action towards Syria, kind of not knowing what we’re going to do next, we’re going to start a war with Iran, because Iran’s going to take our inaction in Syria as meaning we’re not serious about their nuclear-weapons program,” Graham said.
A White House spokesman said Thursday that the Syrian government had probably used the agent sarin in the 2-year-old civil war that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and resulted in 70,000 deaths, as estimated by the United Nations.
In the Syrian government’s first response to the U.S. findings, Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said “the fabricated and false” allegations “do not have any credibility,” according to the official Sana news agency. The regime has said that chemical weapons have been used by terrorists, its blanket description for the opposition.
The deadliest such purported attack was in the Khanal-Assal village in the Aleppo province in March. The Syrian government called for the United Nations to investigate purported chemical weapons use by rebels in the attack that killed 31 people.
Syria, however, has not allowed a team of experts into the country because it wants the investigation limited to the single Khan al-Assal attack, while U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged “immediate and unfettered access” for an expanded investigation.
So far, the United States has taken limited military steps in Syria and has confined U.S. assistance to nonlethal aid - providing equipment such as night-vision goggles and body armor - for the rebels fighting the Assad government.
Democrats speaking on the Sunday shows, including Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, seemed less inclined to step up military aid and more focused on providing humanitarian assistance to displaced Syrians.
“I believe the United States could play a greater role in dealing with the humanitarian crisis,” Ellison said on Meet the Press. “We have spillage and refugees in Jordan, in Lebanon, and internally displaced people in Syria. The suffering is intense, and I don’t think the world’s greatest superpower, the United States, can stand by and not do anything.”
Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., said on Fox News Sunday that his nation isn’t pressing the U.S. to take any action against Syria.
Oren said Israel had it its own “red line” for taking action and said his nation “will react” if the Syrian regime seeks to transfer chemical weapons to terrorists, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In the latest developments in Syria, rebels seeking to topple Assad fought intense battles with his troops Sunday to try to seize control of three military air bases in the country’s north and curtail the regime’s use of its punishing air power, activists said.
Rebels, who have been trying to capture the air fields for months, broke into the sprawling Abu Zuhour air base in northwestern Idlib province and Kweiras base in the Aleppo province on Saturday. Fighting raged inside the two facilities Sunday.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least seven fighters were killed in the fighting in Abu Zuhour, in addition to an unknown number of soldiers. The group, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said the Syrian air force conducted an airstrike on Abu Zuhour village during the fighting to ease pressure on government troops inside the base.
Rebels control much of Idlib and Aleppo provinces, which border Turkey, although government troops still hold some areas, including the provincial capital of Idlib province and parts of the city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest urban center.
The Aleppo Media Center said rebels also seized 60 percent of the Mannagh helicopter base near the border with Turkey. Rebels from the Islamist al-Burraq Brigades announced that fighters from multiple factions in northern Aleppo have launched a large scale offensive to seize full control of the facility.
Government troops regularly shell nearby areas from the Mannagh base, including a rocket attack overnight on the town of Tal Rifaat near the border with Turkey that killed at least four people, including two women and a child.
In neighboring Lebanon, Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV reported that Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov met Saturday night with the pro-Syrian militant group’s leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. No details emerged of the late-night meeting.
The Shiite Muslim group has been drawn into the fighting in Syria and is known to be backing regime fighters in Shiite villages near the Lebanon border. The Syrian opposition accuses fighters from the group of taking part in the Syrian military crackdown inside the country.
At a Sunday morning news conference in Beirut, Bogdanov called for a diplomatic solution to Syria’s civil war based on the Geneva Communique of June 2012. The communique is a broad but ambiguous proposal endorsed by Western powers and Russia to provide a basis for negotiations.
In other news, Iran’s state TV reported that an Egyptian presidential delegation discussed the Syrian crisis with the leaders of Iran.
The report said the Egyptian presidential adviser for foreign affairs, Essam Haddad, met Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who called for a quick settlement of the crisis based on “talk and understanding.”
Another report by the semiofficial ISNA news agency said the Egyptian delegation also met Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters. Khamenei has repeatedly voiced support for Assad.
The report said the two sides also discussed bilateral issues.
Information for this article was contributed by Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times; by Cotten Timberlake and Cheyenne Hopkins of Bloomberg News; and by Philip Elliot and Zeina Karam of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/29/2013