Senator: Don't count on Russia to force out Assad

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. can't count on Russia — a major arms supplier to Syria — to force President Bashar Assad from power, a U.S. senator said Sunday, blaming President Barack Obama for embracing a "feckless" foreign policy and punting tough decisions until after the November election.

It was a particularly sharp rebuke for Sen. John McCain, who as a longtime critic of Obama's foreign policy hasn't pulled many punches. As the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCain's viewpoint on complex world events often finds its way into Republican election-year talking points.

"This administration has a feckless foreign policy which abandons American leadership," McCain told "Fox News Sunday."

"What the conclusion you can draw is that this president wants to kick the can down the road on all of these issues until after the election ... it's really an abdication of everything that America stands for and believes in," he later added.

The White House called for Assad's ouster as recently as Saturday when it blamed the Syrian government for the deaths of more than 100 people, including 49 children, following peaceful protests. National Security Council spokeswoman Erin Pelton said the attack serves as a "vile testament to an illegitimate regime." The Syrian government has denied responsibility.

The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting Sunday afternoon to hear a briefing on the Houla massacre from the head of the U.N. observer mission in Syria.

Britain and France had proposed issuing a council press statement condemning the attack on civilians and pointing the finger at the Syrian government for Friday's attack. But Russia told council members it could not agree to any statement until the council was briefed by the U.N. observer mission at session on Sunday.

Earlier this month at the meeting of leading industrial nations at Camp David, Maryland, White House officials said they had hoped Russia could use some of its sway to halt the bloody crackdown and raised the possibility of modeling a regime change in Syria after Yemen. Yemen's longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in February as part of a U.S.-backed power transfer deal that gave him immunity from prosecution in return for relinquishing power.

According to U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev "did not dispute the fact that there needs to be a process of political transition" in Syria.

"I think the question is, just how does that manifest itself?" Rhodes told reporters at a May 19 press conference.

The United States wants to avoid escalating a confrontation with Moscow over Syria, but wants Medvedev to hear the depth of international outrage. Specifically, the U.S. wants to prevent another Security Council showdown, in which Russia might feel it had to veto any anti-Assad proposals on principle and the U.S. would lose that avenue as a practical alternative. Moscow and Beijing have already twice shielded Syria from U.N. sanctions over the crackdown.

According to one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal diplomacy, the U.S. focus is now on getting Russia to tolerate a "political transition" in Syria similar to Yemen.

But McCain says the U.S. would be foolish to rely on Russia, a main supplier of arms to the Syrian military.

"Here we are a year later and 10,000 killed," he said, referring to the onset of protests across the Arab world. And "our hopes rest on convincing (Russia) to ease out Assad, comparing it to Yemen, which there is no comparison. It's really just a sad story."