What Sen. John McCain was doing in Syria
The 2008 GOP presidential candidate conducts some freelance diplomacy in the Middle East. Not everyone is impressed.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) spent a few hours of his Memorial Day in Syria, meeting with rebel leaders who are trying to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. McCain, the Senate's most prominent supporter of greater U.S. intervention in Syria's civil war, snuck into the country from Turkey. He's the highest-ranking American to visit Syria during the two-year-old conflict.
McCain's visit to Syria was kept secret until he was back in Turkey, at which point The Daily Beast's Josh Rogin published an article on the covert trip. McCain's office then confirmed it. How under-the-radar was the excursion?
McCain's detour was coordinated by the U.S.-based Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nonprofit group that supports the Syrian rebels. Two of the organization's top leaders accompanied McCain, as did Gen. Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Rebel leaders from around the country gathered to meet with McCain and Idris.
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Since early April, the U.S. has been providing some Syrian rebels with body armor and night-vision glasses, along with food and medical aid. The Daily Beast's Rogin says the rebels asked McCain for weapons and other military aid. Idris tells Rogin:
The last items on Idris' wish list seem unlikely, at least for now, but as the Syrian war starts spreading into neighboring Lebanon, giving the rebels weapons isn't far-fetched. The European Union late Monday lifted its embargo on arming the opposition, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted last week to arm and provide military training to vetted anti-Assad factions.
Still, President Obama is less than enthusiastic about entangling the U.S. in Syria's civil war. As McCain was meeting with rebel leaders, Secretary of State John Kerry was flying to Paris to work on proposed Syrian peace talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose government is Assad's biggest backer outside the region. (Rebel leaders reportedly told McCain that there are a growing number of Russian military advisers in Damascus.)
The Obama administration is right to tread carefully, says Patrick Brennan at National Review. Gen. Idris, "a defector from Assad's army who has won fans in the West by rejecting the most extreme and jihadist elements of the opposition," is better than the other anti-Assad forces, notably the radical Islamists of the Nusrah Front. But Idris, "unfortunately, appears to have very little influence or credibility among the rebels," and it's not clear McCain's proposed U.S. military aid would change that, Brennan says.
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The "optimal geopolitical result" for the U.S. in Syria would be a stalemate, says Paul Mirengoff at Power Line. But the Syrian government appears to be breaking the deadlock, with the help of Hezbollah, and "the revival of Assad's fortunes makes me think that U.S. non-involvement should no longer be considered our best option."
Whatever the best course for America in Syria, McCain's not the person to decide, says Peter Z. Scheer at TruthDig. "By law, senators are not allowed to make foreign policy during their trips abroad, which are meant to be fact finding in nature." And McCain's clandestine sojourn has already upstaged the high-profile negotiations between "the actual secretary of state" and his Russian counterpart.
Worse, McCain "is playing the role of maverick in the most dangerous sense of the word, and may end up forcing the United States into a protracted land war in Syria that it can't easily win," says Will Stabley at the Stabley Times. Somebody may need to "tap Sen. McCain on the shoulder and remind him that he lost the election in 2008 and is in fact not the president."
McCain has done a bit of freelance diplomacy in the past, though. He visited with Libyan rebels before the U.S. and its European allies provided weapons and air support that led to the overthrow and death of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi — and eventually, the Benghazi attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. And, as McCain himself told us, he met with Gadhafi, too.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) agrees with McCain about Syria, but he apparently feels a little levity is called for regarding McCain's covert day trip:
Before his trip, McCain got in a heated argument with Egyptian veteran diplomat Amr Moussa at the World Economic Forum in Jordan. Watch:
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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