Rubio Warns Syria on Brink of Collapse: U.S. Must Act or Risk Full-Scale Civil War & Regional Chaos

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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a stark warning during recent remarks on Capitol Hill, stating that Syria’s transitional authority could collapse within weeks without urgent U.S. support. Rubio argued that failure to engage could lead to a full-scale civil war and the disintegration of Syria, sparking regional instability and humanitarian catastrophe. With echoes of past interventions and warnings of “epic” consequences, Rubio’s comments have sparked major debate. What does this mean for U.S. foreign policy and the future of Syria?    #SyriaCrisis #MarcoRubio #USForeignPolicy #CivilWarWarning #MiddleEast #Geopolitics #BreakingNews #USPolitics #Damascus #SyrianConflict #WarAndPeace #RubioSpeech  Also Read  article testing new :: https://www.oneindia.com/temp/article-testing-new-4058241.html?ref=DMDesc  test plugins :: https://www.oneindia.com/temp/test-plugins-4044991.html?ref=DMDesc  Donald Trump Claims Google Censors News About Him; Google Denies :: https://www.oneindia.com/international/trump-accuses-google-of-censoring-news-011-3896863.html?ref=DMDesc    ~HT.410~PR.274~ED.420~

Transcript

00:00And that isn't about saving money. It is about ensuring that we are delivering to our people

00:04what they deserve. Seven minutes since we have a second. Makes America stronger, safer, and more

00:08prosperous. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Rubio. We're going to do a round of questions. We'll go

00:14seven minutes since we have a secretary here. And I'm going to start. One of the things that

00:20you mentioned, and admittedly, what we're dealing with here is a large number of subjects. I want

00:27to focus on one that Senator Shaheen and I have worked together on, and that's the Syria

00:33matter. Thank you and the President for suspending or lifting the sanctions on Syria. I think

00:39the next step, and I think you agree with us, that both Syria and Lebanon are opportunities

00:46for us. And we need to explore the opportunities with a careful eye on what's going on to make

00:53sure it stays on track. I think the next step, as far as I'm concerned, as far as moving Syria

01:00forward, is getting personnel on the ground there. And you and I talked about the possibility

01:06of opening the embassy. And I understand that this isn't a classified setting, but can you

01:13maybe describe for us the challenges of opening the embassy, why we haven't done it to this

01:19point, staying within the bounds of the... Yeah, well, it's entirely driven by security

01:24concerns. By the way, we're not, it's not the transitional authorities. We don't think they

01:28would harm us. But there are other elements on the ground in Syria that we have to be able to

01:31protect our... And there are, there are the ability, you don't just have to be able to get

01:35people in, you have to be able to get people out. We have all kinds of requirements that are there

01:39for a reason. If someone is hurt, do you have a medical evacuation plan? Can you secure a facility

01:43from an attack from an armed group, many of whom are still running loose in the country,

01:48unfortunately? It's one of the fundamental challenges the transitional authority is facing.

01:52On the broader point of Syria, I would say it is, when Syria, if you look at the history of the

01:57region, when Syria is unstable, the region becomes unstable. And this has certainly been true after

02:02the Arab Spring led to the Assad rebellion against Assad, and that really destabilized the entire

02:07region. And then it turned Syria, frankly, into a playground for jihadist groups, including ISIS and

02:12others that used it to operate and to destabilize their partners. So you have this change in

02:16December. And my view, which I've discussed with many of you individually, is the bad news is that

02:22the transitional authority figures, they didn't pass their background check with the FBI, okay?

02:25They've got a tough history and one that we understand. But on the flip side of it is, if we

02:30engage them, it may work out, it may not work out. If we did not engage them, it was guaranteed to not

02:35work out. In fact, it is our assessment that, frankly, the transitional authority, given the

02:40challenges they're facing, are maybe weeks, not many months, away from potential collapse and a

02:46full-scale civil war of epic proportions, basically the country splitting up. The good news is that

02:52there is a Syrian national identity. It is one of the places in the Middle East where Alouis and

02:56Druze and Christians and Sunni and Shia have lived along, and Kurds, have lived alongside each other

03:01underneath the banner of a Syrian identity until it was broken by a butcher, Assad, who pitted them

03:06against each other. So they face a number of challenges. The first is they are dealing with

03:10deep internal distrust in that country because Assad deliberately pitted these groups against

03:15each other. He claimed to be the protector of the Alouis and the Christians and pitted them against

03:19the Druze or whoever else he wanted to, and the result is a deep level of distrust. The second is

03:24the displacement, upwards of six, seven, eight million Syrians living abroad. Very successful, by the way,

03:29in the countries they go to. But they need to come, we need to figure out how we can enable the

03:34transitional authority to create an environment where they come back home, where they can come

03:38back to their homes, where they can help rebuild their economy. But what prompted the president

03:42to move quickly on sanctions, because we had a plan, you know, we engaged with the foreign minister

03:46at the UN here in New York. We gave him a visa to come into the country. We allowed their finance

03:50minister to come to World Bank hearings or meetings here in Washington, D.C. The next step was I was going

03:56to meet with a foreign minister, and some of you may have met with him already at Munich, but I was going to

04:00meet with him in Turkey at the NATO gathering. But the president had an opportunity to meet with

04:05al-Shahra. And frankly, he made a bold decision. I'll do it. I'll meet with them under the Saudis

04:10and the Turks that encouraged that. And the rationale and the reason is we need to, right now,

04:16the most important thing is that partnering nations, the nations in the region want to get aid in,

04:21want to start helping them, and they can't because they're afraid of our sanctions. So they don't.

04:26The lifting of the sanctions, its most immediate impact will be to allow neighboring countries

04:30to begin to assist the transitional authority to build governance mechanisms that allow them to

04:35actually establish a government, unify the armed forces under one banner and the like.

04:39But I want to be frank, that won't be enough. You know, with the CESAR Act, we can issue waivers,

04:44but these waivers, because of expirations on them, are not going to attract the kind of foreign

04:49investment. Ultimately, there's going to have to be something done congressionally or more

04:52comprehensively to ensure that if the right steps are taken, we can create an environment for private

04:57sector growth that begin to provide economic opportunity to the people of Syria. But one last

05:03point I would make is the outcome in Syria will have a deep impact on what happens inside of

05:08Lebanon, because Lebanon, too, has been hurt by a combination of clashes at the border, but also

05:13they've had to assume responsibility for some of these Syrian refugees.

05:16We believe that, by the way.

05:17So the combination, if you think about a region, let's say two years from now, where Syria and Lebanon

05:22are stable, that opens up incredible opportunities around the region for all kinds of peace and

05:28security and the end of conflicts and wars. Obviously, this is a big task. It's, you know,

05:33big picture thinking, but it's a historic opportunity and one that we are obligated to try

05:39to explore and see if we can make it work.

05:40Thank you. I appreciate that. And I think we're in full agreement with this. And it is a conundrum

05:48as far as the sanctions are concerned. We've got the six months. But as you say, the future,

05:54it's hard to predict the future since it hasn't happened yet, as Yogi Berra used to say. And

05:58there are real issues and risks in the future. We can take it a step at a time. You issued a visa to

06:06come to New York, which is important to meet with other heads of state. Do you have the ability to

06:21do that for the president also?

06:24Sure. I mean, we could and there may be an opportunity to do that come the General Assembly

06:30of the United Nations. Yeah, probably, probably will be. And I think that's important.

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