Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) delivered a passionate call for U.S. intervention in Syria Friday morning on FNC.
McCain lamented that President Obama's "red line" on chemical weapons gave Bashar al-Assad a "green light" to massacre 93,000 of his own people using conventional means.
Left unattended the conflict in Syria threatens to spill into Lebanon and U.S. allied Jordan, McCain said:
MARTHA MACCALLUM: Based on everything you are saying, I think back to Libya, we heard the same thing from the president then, that Qaddafi would fall, that it would happen. The French really led the way in that situation. Now what you are describing in terms of the Russian involvement and Iranian involvement here, is a regional conflict -- the president has always referred to this as a civil war in Syria, should we get involved in a civil war in Syria? Now we're talking about a regional conflict that we're going to need our allies engaged in as well. And Great Britain has said we are not sure that we are in, basically, at this point. So what would you do on that front?
JOHN MCCAIN: The British want in and they stated it, everything but openly. The French want in. They long ago said it was clear that Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons. By the way we determined Bashar al-Assad has killed about 100-150 people with chemical weapons. How did he kill the other 93,000?
MARTHA MACCALLUM: Good question.
JOHN MCCAIN: It's just - what the president did was he gave them a red line but gave them a green light to do everything else. And if I sound a little emotional about this it's because the news out of that country is horrific. And it is about to destabilize and maybe even overthrow the government of Jordan. It's about to cause Lebanon to become a cockpit of sectarian violence and we have basically passively sat there and done nothing.
Full interview: