Top Senators can’t explain Romney’s Syria policy

As the crisis in Syria deepens, top senators in both parties are unable to explain presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s policy on dealing with the country’s deepening civil war.

Romney, who leaves Tuesday evening on a three-nation foreign trip, barely mentioned Syria in his foreign-policy speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars conference in Reno, and then only as a criticism of President Barack Obama’s "reset" policy with Russia.

"I don’t know what it is," said Senate Armed Services Committee member John Cornyn (R-TX) when asked to comment on Romney’s Syria policy. After The Cable explained it to him, Cornyn said he needed more time to study the issue. Other top senators were similarly befuddled.

On his campaign website, Romney criticizes Obama for reaching out to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the past but stops short of calling for any direct action to force Assad from power such as directly arming the opposition, as his surrogates like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) are demanding, or establishing "safe zones" for the Syrian opposition, as many of his campaign’s foreign policy advisors are calling for.

"Mitt Romney believes the United States should pursue a strategy of isolating and pressuring the Assad regime to increase the likelihood of a peaceful transition to a legitimate government. We should redouble our push for the U.N. Security Council to live up to its responsibilities and impose sanctions that cut off funding sources that serve to maintain the regime’s grip on power," the campaign website reads.

But the Obama administration is already pursuing a more aggressive strategy than that, announcing this week that it is abandoning the diplomacy track at the U.N. and ramping up various levels of support to the Syrian opposition. CIA teams are also reportedly vetting rebels fighters and aiding in their efforts to get weapons from countries including Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Administration officials say that increased communications and intelligence assistance is also on the way.

Romney has said repeatedly that the United States should "work with partners" to arm the Syrian opposition but has stopped short of calling for Washington to give the rebels direct, lethal aid. On July 19, after the U.N. Security Council again failed to impose punitive measures on the Assad regime following Russian and Chinese vetoes, Romney again criticized the administration’s policy without saying what he would do differently.

"Russia’s veto again shows the hollowness of President Obama’s failed ‘reset’ policy with Russia and his lack of leadership on Syria," Romney said. "While Russia and Iran have rushed to support Bashar al-Assad and thousands have been slaughtered, President Obama has abdicated leadership and subcontracted U.S. policy to Kofi Annan and the United Nations. Under this President, American influence and respect for our position around the world is at a low ebb."

On Monday, Romney told CNBC, "I think from the very beginning we misread the setting in Syria… America should’ve come out very aggressively from the very beginning and said Assad must go. … The world looks for American leadership and American strength."

On Capitol Hill, senior Republicans and Democrats alike were at pains to describe Romney’s policy on Syria, much less say whether they supported it or not.

"I think we need to have a robust discussion about that," Cornyn said. "There’s also the concern that Syria is much more difficult than Libya was, for example. So I think the discussions need to continue about what the appropriate response is. I’m interested in learning from others what their response is."

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ), who admitted last week that he didn’t know what Romney’s Afghanistan policy was, couldn’t name any specifics of Romney’s Syria policy Tuesday and instead launched into a monologue about America’s role in the world.

"Syria is a really complicated problem in a really complicated part of the world and anybody who says you can have a Syria policy separate and apart from the rest of your foreign policy doesn’t know what foreign policy is made of," Kyl told The Cable. "I know that Governor Romney sees the complexities of the world and appreciates the need to have a strong America that has the flexibility to act in complicated and difficult and very troublesome situations like Syria."

Kyl declined to say whether he supported arming the Syrian opposition or establishing safe zones inside Syria, or whether he believed that Romney was supporting either option.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) said he supported the administration’s efforts to facilitate the movement of arms to the Syrian opposition and he believes the United States should work with Turkey and NATO to establish safe zones for Syrian civilians.

But Levin could not say what Romney’s Syria policy was or whether it was substantively different from what the administration is doing now.

"I don’t know what his position is and his positions change so frequently, it’s hard to keep track," Levin said. "That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have one, or that he doesn’t have two or three for that matter."

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) told The Cable he has very specific criticisms of the Obama administration’s Syria policy and very specific requests, namely that the administration use American military power to protect Syrian civilians and directly arm the opposition to help topple Assad.

"I’m pained every day that goes by and more and more Syrians get killed. We may be doing something through the CIA, but not a lot. Now the Syrians are using fighter plans and threatening to use gas," said Lieberman. "What I’d like to see is the Obama administration lead the coalition of the willing to go after the Assad regime directly, and I think that would end this pretty quickly."