Retired Gen. Jack Keane called the Obama administration's policy of arming the rebels "feckless" on America Live Monday, saying otherwise they were "ceding the radical Islamists the Middle East" and that simply giving them weapons was not enough to sway the momentum held by the Assad regime.
Keane said that covert operators and intelligence agents could work with such groups to minimize the risk of weapons falling into the hands of al-Qaeda linked cells:
MEGYN KELLY: What if we do provide these arms and this money and it does wind up in the hands of al-Qaeda linked groups like this, and the beheadings and the executions of children and so on continue, and now we're the funders and backers of it?
KEANE: Well then, what we're doing then is ceding the radical Islamists the Middle East. There has to be some risk involved here. Listen, there are anti-aircraft weapons and anti-tank weapons already in the rebels' hands. Multiple kinds of rebels' hands. What we would do, we're providing those kinds of weapons, and I don't believe the administration is going to do it. I think they have a feckless policy here when it comes to arming the rebels. I don't believe they're going to give them the anti-aircraft weapons, which is what they truly need, and also anti-tank weapons. They'll possibly give those. There are some ways to minimize that risk. We would probably put some covert operators on the ground with them. They've been working with these groups now for some time. Initially the CIA didn't want to touch this for the same reasons that KT had discussed, but after they spent time with them, they became convinced that they could minimize this risk. Now let's say this. Arming the rebels in and of itself would not be decisive. If you really want to change the momentum that Assad has, you have to put his air force on the ground, if you're going to do that and take that air power away from them. So arming the rebels by themselves will not change fundamentally the momentum.
Full interview: