Breaking News: U.S. Senator McCain says to bomb Syria without UN approval to 'protect civilians.' Where is this guy`s head at?

McCain calls for US-led strikes on Syria without UN mandate
RT NEWS
Published: 05 March, 2012, 23:18

Senator John McCain, photo credit: NYDailyNews

The former presidential candidate (R-AZ) becomes the first senator to publicly call for a US-led military strike on Syria in order to halt the nearly year-long conflict there.

Draft copies of McCain's speech, obtained by Foreign policy magazine, have him telling the Senate that “After a year of bloodshed, the crisis in Syria has reached a decisive moment." He talks at length about the Bashar Assad government, and says that the only realistic way to preserve “innocent lives … is with foreign airpower.”

The Arizona senator points out that President Barack Obama characterized the prevention of mass atrocities as "a core national security interest" when speaking about Libya, and has committed the credibility of the United States to his repeated calls for Assad to step down.

“If Assad manages to cling to power – or even if he manages to sustain his slaughter for months to come, with all of the human and geopolitical costs that entails – it would be a strategic and moral defeat for the United States. We cannot, we must not, allow this to happen," McCain says.