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Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today released the following video statement on the escalating situation in Syria:

“I’ve been talking about the situation in Syria for weeks, and at a time with so many problems here at home, people ask, ‘Well, why should we care?’ Well, here’s why we should care: because the single greatest risk to American security in the Middle East is Iran, and Iran’s number one ally is Syria. And the loss of Assad and the Assad regime would be a devastating blow to Iran and their plans to hurt the United States.

“But here’s the second reason why we should care: innocent women, children and civilians are being massacred every single day in the streets of Syria. Now everyone says, ‘Let’s rely on the international community to deal with it.’ The problem is the international community is being held hostage by China and Russia, two countries that appear to want to reserve the right to do the same thing to their people if things get out of hand in their own country. That’s why they just vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the Assad regime. Every time that’s been tried, they have blocked it. These countries are an impediment to the international community dealing with this issue once and for all.

“All the Syrian people are asking for is support in our voices and in our activities, and they deserve that. America needs to be on the side of freedom, democracy and human rights in every single case. We’re seeing dividends of that already in Libya, where a free election just elected a pro-American, pro-Western government in charge in Libya. It’s going to be much harder to recruit anti-American jihadists in Libya in the future because of the critical role America played – although had we played it sooner, that transition would have happened much quicker and less destructively.

“We have a chance to still get Syria right. I hope America and the Administration will step up to the plate.”

Broadcast quality of this video statement is available here. The statement is also available on YouTube.

In June, Rubio outlined concrete actions the U.S. should take regarding Syria in the Wall Street Journal. Last week, he again condemned the latest Assad massacre and the Obama Administration’s approach to Syria.