McCain Says Airstrikes in Syria Put Pressure on Obama to Act

Senator John McCain, who has long advocated for more forceful United States support of the Syrian rebel movement, said Sunday that the two airstrikes just outside of the Syrian capital in recent days - which the Syrian government said were conducted by Israeli forces - were likely to increase pressure on President Obama to act.

One reason, he said on “Fox News Sunday,” is that the raids appear to weaken an argument that Syria has a far more daunting air defense system than, for example, Libya had under Moammar al-Gadhafi.

“The Israelis seem to be able to penetrate it fairly easily,” he said, although the Lebanese army said that in the raid on Friday, Israeli warplanes fired into Syrian territory from Lebanese airspace. There was another apparent airstrike early Sunday.

Mr. McCain referred to comments by General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has described the Syrian defenses as “a much denser and more sophisticated system” than Libya’s.

Mr. McCain said the United States was capable of disabling the Syrian air defenses on the ground “with cruise missiles, cratering their runways, where all of these supplies, by the way, from Iran and Russia are coming in by air” and using Patriot missile batteries to defend a circumscribed safe zone to protect rebels and refugees. He has repeatedly urged such action.

Several lawmakers appearing on the Sunday talk shows underscored the argument frequently heard from the administration - that arming the rebels carries a serious risk of lethal weaponry ending up in the hands of Qaeda sympathizers, possibly even helping them seize control of the country.

Representative Peter T. King, a member and former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, voiced such fears, though he said the administration had improved its understanding of the powers holding sway within the rebel movement.

“Hopefully, we’ve been looking at this very carefully and we have a better feel now, a better understanding of where the weapons would be going,” Mr. King, a Republican of New York, said on the CNN program “State of the Union.” “Until then, I’m very concerned that we could just replace one terrible dictator with a terrible ideological movement which is aimed at our destruction.”

Representative C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger, a ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, defended Mr. Obama’s cautious response to evidence that Syria might have used chemical weapons and crossed the “red line” Mr. Obama laid out last year.

“I think he understands that if we’re going to be involved, that we have to make sure we have all the facts and all the information,” Mr. Ruppersberger, of Maryland, said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.” “We can’t be the sheriff for the whole world,” and any American action in Syria should be carried out as part of a regional coalition, he said.

But Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, chairman of the intelligence committee, argued that while the administration did not have a wealth of options, there was still much it could do short of putting “boots on the ground.”

He said the United States, in cooperation with its Arab League partners, could help provide leadership, intelligence and training. Such support, “which they’re asking for, could be hugely helpful,” he said on “Face the Nation.”

Mr. Rogers said that the United States could help enforce a no-fly zone over part of Syria without putting American pilots at risk through the use of “better technology” - presumably by providing batteries of surface-to-air missiles.

“It’s a game-changer,” he said, “when airplanes and helicopters start falling out of the sky.”