Ret. Gen. Jack Keane said the U.S. should employ strikes that could take out Bashar al-Assad's air power against Syrian rebels Monday on Fox News.
Keane, commenting on Sen. John McCain's (R., Ariz.) remarks on "Fox News Sunday" that the U.S. needed to employ a game-changing action in Syria, said air strikes would fit that bill.
"I think the option that'd be the game-changer is taking this air power out of the air," Keane said. "That is the thing why we have the stalemate right now, because [Assad] pounds the rebels when they get close to seizing something, or when they've got their hands on something and they're trying to sustain that. He pounds them unmercifully with his air power and that is the reason for the stalemate. Bring that down, and the momentum shifts to the rebels."
At a minimum, the U.S. should arm the rebels with anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons as they had previously requested, but the greater risk was to do nothing, he said.
"We have the capability to take down some of Assad's air power, his airfields, his airplanes themselves, his infrastructure, and certainly we can tell him we're going to do that, do it, and as a result of that, if he continues to use chemical weapons, we'll do more of it," Keane said. "Certainly, that makes sense given the realities that we are facing right now."