The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee wants the Obama administration to encourage Arab allies to provide the Free Syrian Army with weapons to counter Syrian government artillery, but says the United States does not need to patrol a no-fly zone or provide arms on its own.
Rep. Ed Royce, a Republican from southern California who took over the chairmanship of the committee this year, also told Al-Monitor in an extensive interview late Monday (May 6) that the regional expansion and escalation of the Syrian conflict were in part a function of inadequate American leadership.
