John McCain

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John McCain

Senator John McCain, former president hopeful, on Monday became the first American senator to demand the president of the United States of America to begin air attacks against the regime in Damascus, criticizing the presidential stance on the matter as too soft.

McCain said that the crackdown on the people of Syria Bashar al-Assad has been conducting for the last year has already resulted in war crimes, and that the neighbors of Syria are bound to intervene militarily in the restive country, with or without the American help.

Speaking from the Senate floor, McCain said that the country had a moral and strategic obligation toward the Syrian people to force Assad’s loyalists to stop their repression, and that the only way to do it is by means of “foreign air power.”

McCain said that the United States should lead an international effort to secure the restive centers, especially in the northern part of the country.

McCain’s speech marks a change in perspective as compared with his advise delivered last month, when he was talking about aiding the opposition with weapons and technical assistance and medical care.

McCain proposition on Monday is expected to divide the Senate on the matter, and to draw concern of those who consider that the conflict has already been too much militarized as it is. There is the party of those who opposed the war on Libya last year, and they may also offer resistance to the plan.

McCain urged the Senators to make sure that the Obama administration assures the Syrian leaders that their actions won’t go unpunished and that the United States will use the entire might of its air power to make it happen.

The speech made by Senator McCain comes at a time when the UN refugee agency announced that up to 3,000 Syrians poured on Monday into Lebanon fleeing their own homes afraid that they could be killed by the Syrian military that is said to have entered the neighborhoods of Homs, previously taken by rebels, and have conducted executions to punish people for joining the rebellion.

The city of Homs and the settlements in the province of Homs have been under intense fire for over a month, as the regime wants to eliminate any sign of the rebellion against it, in spite of amounting international pressure.

Last week U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton said that the actions of the regime in Homs and the entire country must have come to meet the requirements to be considered war crimes, which makes it possible for the regime to be held accountable for them. She made it clear that there is going to be a reckoning day for the actions of the regime over the last year.

The same was said by the European Union, which announced that it is investigating the crimes committed by Assad in Syria and that a tribunal would be created in the likeness of the one created for the crimes in the former Yugoslavia.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee last week passed a resolution condemning the atrocities committed in Syria, and demanding the president Assad to step down and allow elections to be called.

Soon after the resolution passed it was said that the International Criminal Court in the Hague could be notified to investigate the crimes committed in Syria, and if found responsible, the president Assad and his accomplices could become subjects to an international arrest warrant.

While touring the capitals of the northern African states after the meeting with the “Friends of Syria,” U.S. State Secretary expressed hope that soon the troops that are supporting the regime in Damascus would abandon it and would join the rebels, that is the people of Syria.

Syrian regime seems to have found support in Russia and China, the two countries which have ties with Damascus since the Cold War era. However, China seems determined to press the regime to accept changes and to end violence.

To that purpose, it has already sent a former ambassador to Damascus, which is expected to discuss on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the decision-makers there about the situation in the country, and to demand them to end violence and begin talks with the opposition.

Russia could change its position too, now that president Putin has been re-elected in Kremlin. Many Syrians are said to believe that as long as Putin is the strong man in Kremlin, Assad will be in Damascus.

For that matter, there were many Syrians who wished him luck in his bid for re-election. However, it is possible that the Russian position to change now that Putin has already demonstrated the people in Russia that their country is a serious peace broker in the Middle East, and a superpower.

Russia could concede to change its stance on Syria, probably not to the extent of allowing a military intervention to take place.

A report in a Lebanese newspaper on Monday said that the Syrian military encountered some French troops in the city of Homs, and that Paris and Damascus is negotiating their fate.

Though neither Damascus nor Paris acknowledged it as to be true, such a possibility could fuel the Syrian claim that what happened in Syria was an international conspiracy the regime had to battle.

Russian intelligence officials had warned last month that an international task force was operating on the field in Syria, supporting the opposition and the defectors from the army, an information that was never proved nor confirmed, not even by Damascus.

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