Children are among those reportedly killed by what activists say was a missile strike in the Syrian city of Hama. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio said on Wednesday the United States should create a “safe haven” for the Syrian opposition but stopped short of urging Washington to arm the rebels, suggesting they were not yet organized enough.
The potential Republican vice presidential candidate gave a lengthy foreign policy speech that stressed a more active U.S. role in the world but that echoed U.S. President Barack Obama’s positions in some respects, notably on Syria and Iran.
Rubio had tart words for Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he “might talk tough, but he knows he is weak,” and for China, saying that “for now, it would be foolish to be confident in the idea that China can be counted on to defend and support global economic and political freedom.”
Speaking at the Brookings Institution think tank, Rubio urged a more muscular U.S. response on Syria, saying others see it as a test of U.S. leadership and will conclude Washington “is no longer a reliable security partner” if it does not step up.
“The most powerful and influential nation in the world cannot ask smaller, more vulnerable nations to take risks while we stand on the sidelines,” he said. It may have been the worst-timed, and most tin-eared, magazine article in decades.
“Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic — the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies,” writer Joan Juliet Buck began her profile of Syria’s first lady in Vogue last year. Amid descriptions of Assad’s “energetic grace” and Christian Laboutin shoes, Buck wrote: “The 35-year-old first lady’s central mission is to change the mind-set of six million Syrians under eighteen, encourage them to engage in what she calls ‘active citizenship.’ ”
Well, perhaps. But just as Buck’s profile appeared, Assad’s husband, Bashar al-Assad, began a bloody crackdown on his opponents. Since then, about 9,000 Syrians have been slaughtered by security forces loyal to Assad, Syria’s hereditary president.
Meanwhile, rather than the progressive, arts-loving, British-educated banker of Buck’s telling, Asma al-Assad has emerged as the Marie Antoinette of the Arab Spring. E-mails leaked by Syrian opposition groups last month showed that she was involved in shopping online for jewelry, chandeliers and designer shoes in boutiques in Paris and London while her government’s violent repression was underway.
