As Syria Crackdown Intensifies, Debate Rages Over U.S. Options

“What [the Obama administration] wants to see in Syria is a peaceful political solution,” said Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Anybody who is looking at the situation objectively on the ground sees that as an impossibility. There is not going to be a peaceful political solution and it’s going to be a bitter war to the very end.”

Badran said that those fighting the Syrian regime should be given arms.

“If we’re not willing to deploy our assets to level the playing field and cripple Assad’s military power, then at the very least we have to do so by supporting the people that are fighting on the street, and I think that’s where the conversation is headed,” he said.