With the crisis surrounding Syrian refugees continuing in parts of Europe, Sen. Marco Rubio on Thursday laid part of the blame at the feet of the Obama administration.
In a Fox News interview, Rubio said that the U.S. has helped to allow the situation to “spiral out of control,” and told Fox News’ Greta van Susteren that the crisis is a result of the administration’s decision not to arm the Syrian rebels.
“We’ve allowed this Syrian situation to spiral out of control. I argued from the very beginning of that conflict that the U.S. had a national security interest, primarily because of the rise of [the Islamic State],” Rubio said. “We said if there wasn’t alternatives to Assad on the ground that we could work with, some radical Jihadist group would emerge and become the most powerful force on the ground. I was issuing those warnings from the earliest days days of that conflict.”
“This administration did nothing. They moved very slowly to arm and equip those groups, and as a result the moderate rebels were destroyed and radical groups like [Islamic State] and al-Nusra took hold,” Rubio explained. “And now you have this crisis threatening Europe with hundreds of thousands of people seeking refuge from the horrifying conflict that’s going on there.”
The 2016 hopeful told the host that while it’s not just the responsibility of the U.S. to help, it is in the nation’s national security interest as European allies in NATO are being destabilized by the crisis.
“As long as [the Islamic State] is there, and Assad remains in power, you’re going to continue to see this thing spiral out of control,” Rubio said.
“[I]n any humanitarian crisis, it also creates the possibility, for example, of mayhem,” Rubio said. “Look, on the border with Jordan … over a million refugees have now sought refuge within the borders of Jordan. I believe it’s now the largest or second largest city.”
“And it also becomes a prime target for [the Islamic State] to try to infiltrate people into that camp, destabilizing yet another key ally of ours in the region,” he said. “So it is the United States’ issue and it does confront us. Instability, whether it’s in Europe or any other part of the world, ultimately has an impact on our national security.”
