Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who in April called for the ouster of Syria’s leader, has now stopped short of calling for military action, instead choosing to blame President Obama for creating “no good options.”
The key graph from Rubio’s statement:
“Because the President failed to act in the right way at the right time, we are now left with no good options. Failing to act would further embolden Assad and his Iranian sponsors, leaving the impression that America is feckless and impotent. And a limited attack would do nothing to change the dynamics of the conflict, but could trigger a broader and even more dangerous conflict in the region.
That places Rubio on the fence with regards to the next step the United States should take. In essence, he has blamed Obama’s previous inaction for the tough place the U.S. finds itself in, but stresses that military action is now the president’s decision to make.
“Given those harsh realities, if the President concludes that military action is warranted, instead of having administration officials leak details to the press, he must clearly lay out to Congress and the American people why this is in our national interest, what the goals of this action are, and how the military action he is taking would achieve this objective.
Sens. Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum were the first 2016 Republicans to come out against intervention.
Sen. Rand Paul issued a statement Wednesday that didn’t go that far.
“The war in Syria has no clear national security connection to the United States and victory by either side will not necessarily bring into power people friendly to the United States,” Paul said.
That leans against intervention but isn’t as straight-forward as what Cruz and Santorum have said.
Follow Dave’s blog at TheRun2016.com
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