Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Sunday that President Barack Obama’s inaction on intervening in the human-rights crisis in Syria has left the United States “with the worst possible scenario.”
The Republican senator said the administration should have formed coalitions early on with “reasonable people” battling President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
“Timing matters,” Rubio said on ABC’s “This Week.” “These were options that were there for us a year and a half ago. This president failed to do that.”
Because some of the Syrian rebel groups are linked to al-Qaida, the United States has fewer options than it did even a few months ago, he said, adding that Obama’s commitment to send arms to the rebels is too little and too late.
“The fact that it’s taken this White House and this president so long to get a clear and concise policy on Syria has left us with the worst possible scenario right now,” Rubio said. “I think we need to continue to search for elements on the ground that we can work with.”
Regarding immigration reform, Rubio said the Senate bill that he helped to craft has “elements that need to be improved,” specifically on border security.
“The vast majority of Americans, the vast majority of conservative Republicans, are prepared to support immigration reform but only if we can ensure that we’re not going to have another wave of illegal immigration in the future,” he said. “The only way we’re going to pass an immigration-reform law out of the House and Senate so the president can sign it is that it has real border-security measures within it.”
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