Senator Marco Rubio on Thursday grilled fellow Senator John Kerry, D-Mass., during his Secretary of State confirmation hearing over the challenges created by the Obama Administration's recent activity in the Middle East.
During the hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Florida Republican said that disorganized U.S. foreign policy during the uprisings in Libya and Syria left the opposition unsure and wary of U.S. commitment.
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Rubio said that the U.S. reaction in Libya created the conditions for the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi because the U.S. turned the operation over to the opposition too quickly.
"We got involved in the early stages and then turned the rest of it over to our allies who simply didn't have the capability to bring the conflict to a quick conclusion," he said. "And as a result created the the weak government and situation that we face there."
He said that a similar situation is unfolding in Syria.
"As Iran's best friend, as the Grand Central Station for terrorists all over the world, I think it was in our national interest to help an opposition form and organize itself," he said.
Kerry defended the Obama Administration's approach in Libya as "smart" by becoming engaged in it through the international alliance organization NATO.
"I thought that the way [Obama] approached that was in fact very effective, and the results obviously were exactly what we wanted to achieve," Kerry said. "I think the American people approved of the way in which that was handled."
However, Kerry said, the U.S. will need to reexamine its foreign policy in the Middle East moving forward.
"There is a monumental transformation taking place," he added. "This is the biggest upheaval in that part of the world since the Ottoman Empire came apart.
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"It is a highly sectarian, divided, tribal part of the world. I'm not sure that every policy has always been as sensitive or thoughtful about that as it perhaps ought to be."
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