by Natasha Lennard, Salon While the U.N. launches its investigation into the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria\u2019s Aleppo province, top senators in the Senate Armed Services committee began banging the war drum a little louder Thursday. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) wrote to the president expressing concern about the\u00a0 recent report (use by Assad\u2019s regime of chemical weapons has for some months been the U.S.\u2019s purported \u201cred-line\u201d for military intervention. The senators advocated the use of\u00a0\u201dlimited military options,\u201d such as air strikes, working with Turkish forces and boosting aid to Syrian opposition groups.\u00a0HuffPo\u2019s Michael McAuliff\u00a0<\/a>reprinted in full the three steps recommended in the letter that Levin and McCain want the president to take:<\/p>\n First, we urge you to lead an effort, together with our friends and allies, to degrade the Assad regime\u2019s airpower and to support Turkey if they are willing to establish a safe zone inside of Syria\u2019s northern border. As the Commander of U.S. European Command and NATO\u2019s Supreme Allied Commander, Admiral James Stavridis, testified this week to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Patriot missile batteries that have already been deployed to southern Turkey could be positioned \u2013 again, with Turkey\u2019s consent \u2013 to protect the safe zone, and doing so would be a powerful disincentive for the Assad regime\u2019s pilots to fly in that area. Moreover, the Patriots could be used to defend against the Assad regime\u2019s increasingly frequent use of SCUD missiles \u2014 weapons that the regime has used to indiscriminately kill hundreds of people in northern Syria, and that can also be used as delivery vehicles for chemical weapons \u2014 should they be directed against the safe zone.<\/p>\n Second, General James Mattis, the Commander of U.S. Central Command, testified last week to the Senate Armed Services Committee that \u201ca fair amount\u201d of Assad\u2019s aircraft could be destroyed on the ground using precision airstrikes. Such a mission could also include Assad\u2019s SCUD missile batteries and would not require American or allied pilots to fly into the reach of Syria\u2019s air defenses. We urge you to work with our friends and allies, as well as regional organizations, to consider this limited option.<\/p>\n Finally, we urge you to provide more robust assistance directly to vetted opposition groups. We believe such assistance should include tactical intelligence and increased deliveries of food and medicine, fuel, communications equipment, medical care for the wounded, and other humanitarian assistance. To this end, establishing a safe haven inside Syria would also serve the important goal of delivering humanitarian assistance more effectively.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Armed Services Committee leaders wrote to Obama to advocate air strikes, increased military aid by Natasha Lennard, Salon click here for original article While the U.N. launches its investigation into the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria\u2019s Aleppo province, top senators in the Senate Armed Services committee began banging the war drum a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/fiscal-cliff.jpeg23-1280x960.jpg?fit=620%2C412&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1229"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1232,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions\/1232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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