Ret. General Barry McCaffrey told MSNBC Live's Thomas Roberts Monday that the Obama administration's military measures in Syria were unlikely to achieve any political purpose.
"The U.S. Air Force and Navy can break Assad in under two months, but not with a strike that reassures him in advance is not intended to bring him down or change the trajectory of the war," he said.
Secretary of John Kerry said Monday any U.S. strikes on Syria would be "unbelievably small," leading to criticism that his weak rhetoric did nothing to strengthen the administration's case and only diminished the effectiveness any action would have:
ROBERTS: General, you have expressed major reservations about striking Syria. In fact, you've said it could make the situation there much worse. It's not so much about how we enter. It truly is about the exit strategy and are we leaving it better than when we arrived, and that's certainly something we have learned with Iraq and Afghanistan.
MCCAFFREY: Well, you know, I think the problem here is, and I could buy Ambassador Hill's argument completely, I think the administration made a very strong moral and humanitarian argument that this was an outrage. I think they have clearly connected it to Assad. I think they were correct to go to Congress, thank God. We had no support in the United Nations, NATO, the Arab League, so all this falls into place. The problem is the military measures they're considering are unlikely to achieve a political purpose. There will be some retaliation. There will be tremendous pressures to escalate. The U.S. Air Force and Navy can break Assad in under two months, but not with a strike that reassures him in advance is not intended to bring him down or change the trajectory of the war.