Syrian opposition looks to Congress for military boost
With Syrian Opposition Coalition leader Ahmad Jarba visiting Washington next month, rebels hope US lawmakers will back more arms assistance to moderate opposition forces.
Syrian rebels are counting on Congress to help them make their case to the White House for more and better weapons when their leaders descend on Washington next month.
Despite setbacks on the ground, the Syrian Opposition Coalition is taking some solace from the bipartisan criticism of the Obama administration’s limited response to the conflict. The rebels hope the increasing calls for stepped-up action as the war enters its fourth year will boost coalition leader Ahmad Jarba’s request for anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons when he visits Washington from May 7 to May 14.
“The administration has been using public opinion as an excuse not to do much,” Najib Ghadbian, the special representative to the US and the UN of the Syrian National Council (a member of the broader National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces) told Al-Monitor in an interview ahead of Jarba’s visit. “We need that kind of pressure from the legislative branch for the executive to be more assertive in this conflict.”
Ghadbian points to the skewering of the State Department’s top Middle East official, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Anne Paterson, at a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing and a bipartisan letter from nine top senators urging President Barack Obama to help the rebels with “shifting the stalemate on the ground” as reason for hope.
