The world is running out of time to keep the violence in Syria from destabilizing the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United States Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned Americans Sunday morning.
The men provided a chilling outlook of what the uncontrolled collapse of the Syrian government could lead to, including the threat of Islamist terrorist group Hezbollah confiscating Syria’s chemical weapons and engaging in chemical warfare throughout the Middle East.
McCain, a veteran, a former Prisoner of War (POW) and the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, criticized President Barack Obama and is administration for failing to act against Syria and its president Bashar al-Assad before the situation deteriorated.
“Because of our failure to assist, because of our failure to lead other willing nations in the region like Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Qatar and others, the situation has now deteriorated to a situation which is really, really very dangerous,” McCain said on CNN’s State of the Union.
McCain said the US gave the United Nations (UN) more than enough time to resolve the situation, and Russia and China are now using their veto power on the Security Council to keep Assad in power.
The 2008 GOP presidential nominee also criticized the President and his administration for telling Israel not to intervene in Syria.
“Everybody knows that relations with Israel have never been worse,” McCain said, arguing that the Obama administration’s behavior has caused “a lack of trust on the part of the Israelis about what the United States of America will or will not do.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to comment on the U.S. presidential race to either Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace or CBS News’ Face the Nation host Bob Scheiffer, however Netanyahu indicated that he did not agree with the United States’ current approach to the situation in the Middle East.
Netanyahu said his country would take any action necessary – including the use of force – to keep the Israeli people safe.
“We will do whatever is necessary to protect, to defend the lives of innocent Israelis, and we’ll take those measures as are necessary,” Netanyahu told Schieffer on Face the Nation. “The reason regimes and organizations use terror tactics is to avoid the consequences, and the first act of fighting terrorism is to name and shame the terrorist nations and the terrorist organizations. That’s when I’m doing now on your program, with Iran and Hezbollah.”
Netanyahu said he not only believes the Syrian regime is closely tied to Iran, but that Iran is propping up the Syrian regime.
“Iran is using terror in stealth and hiding behind somebody else in order not to be given responsibility for the heinous acts. Same with Hezbollah” Netanyahu said on Fox News Sunday.
He said Iran was “very close” to being able to produce its first bomb and, “All of the talks and the round of talks follows the previous round of talks that hasn’t stopped the regime one bit. Not an inch since the previous rounds of talks.”
Netanyahu cautioned that if the situation in the Middle East continued to deteriorate, the the “decades of stability” the country has had with Egypt could also come to an end.
“I can’t tell you where the Middle East are going,” he said. “You can’t guarantee that they will appreciate the fact that the United States demands or expects as we do that the peace treaty will be maintained.”
