Bashar al-Assad

Advocates of robust American action in Syria to help remove Bashar al-Assad from power have typically made two arguments.

Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham released the following statement on Syria:

Reuel Marc Gerecht, writing in the Wall Street Journal: 

The latest military developments in Syria are now generally understood as ushering in a new phase in the Syrian conflict. What’s less observed is that the minority Alawite regime’s mass killings of Sunnis and the intense fighting around the cities of Homs and Hama also seem to replicate significant moments of Syrian history. Specifically, Bashar al-Assad’s campaign against his Sunni adversaries recalls the strategy employed by the Crusaders, as invading European armies fortified themselves against various Muslim coalitions in the Levant, from the 12th to the 13th century.

Human Rights Watch has just released an 81-page report detailing the Syrian regime’s systematic use of torture against opposition figures.

The Associated Press reports that, when it comes to Syria, the Arab League is uniting around the opposition:

The prominence of Russian-made helicopters in Bashar al-Assad’s brutal and desperate efforts to hang on to power puts the Syrian war in a new light. It’s getting difficult to categorize the conflict simply as a humanitarian crisis or a “teacup war” of secondary significance. Rather, Syria’s civil war is increasingly fought under a great-power cloud that hasn’t been seen in the Middle East for decades.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House is helping to coordinate logistics for the Free Syrian Army, but not providing arms. “U.S. intelligence operatives and diplomats have stepped up their contacts with Syrian rebels in part to help organize their burgeoning military operations against President Bashar al-Assad's forces, according to senior U.S. officials.”

While the Obama administration and its allies at the New York Times are waiting for Russia to intervene and get Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to step down, the children of Kafranbel show a clearer sense of strategic reality:

Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called the Syrian regime's latest atrocities "horrific." He also said that "it is far part time for the United States ... to put an end to the Assad regime."

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirmed on Friday that al Qaeda has a "presence in Syria."

Bashar al-Assad’s security forces have brazenly slaughtered more than 10,000 Syrian civilians, and injured or detained tens of thousands more, since the anti-regime protests began in March 2011.