Key White House Ally Wants 'Targeted' Strikes in Syria
WASHINGTON — The United States should press Syria and Russia to enter into talks to end the Syrian civil war, including “targeted” strikes on Bashar al-Assad’s military forces, a White House ally said Tuesday.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, an influential Obama administration ally on Capitol Hill, is calling for America and its allies to conduct “limited, targeted strikes at Assad’s apparatus of terror, including airplanes, helicopters, missiles, tanks and artillery.” Such strikes should be “coordinated with the actions of the Syrian opposition on the ground,” the Michigan Democrat said in a joint statement with fellow SASC member Angus King, I-Maine. “Such strikes could degrade Assad’s military capabilities, bring some relief to the embattled Syrian people, show we are serious,” said Levin and King............
Any US military involvement in the kinds of “targeted strikes” called for by Levin and King would come with a hefty price. As America learned with the Libya intervention, even modern-day aerial bombardments from aircraft and naval vessels are extremely costly. The cost of the Libya mission was around $1 billion, according to Pentagon data released in 2011.
Congressional sources are mixed about whether a new 2013 emergency spending measure tailored specifically for a Syrian effort would be needed. Some say it would depend on the shape and duration — as well as the level of direct US military involvement — of such a mission.