Im Nahen Osten gedenkt man McCain

Seth Frantzman schreibt in der Jpost:

In the Middle East, McCain is remembered as a principled supporter of US allies, of people’s quest for freedom from dictatorship and of human rights. Although critics point to statements like the one above, and his joking about “bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran” in a 2007 campaign rally to paint McCain as a warmonger, among many supporters of the Syrian rebels and Kurds, he is fondly remembered as a supporter who stood by those seeking more rights while opposing dictatorships.

“In 2012 when we first started advocating for Syria on the Hill, I remember that members of Congress always sent their junior staff to meet with us (if they even agreed to meet). The exception was Senator McCain,” one Syrian activist named Yasser Bittar Saad Aldeen posted on Facebook. “I swear to you, his eyes teared as he spoke of the women who were raped by Assad forces, and the massacres that we thought almost no one knew about.”

In 2016, as the regime of Bashar Assad pounded rebels in Aleppo, McCain said “the name Aleppo will echo through history as a testament to our moral failure and everlasting shame.” At every twist and turn of the Syrian conflict since the Arab spring uprising of 2011, McCain was there. “Stop Assad now,” he argued in The Wall Street Journal, in 2016. The following year he expressed outrage at Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s comments which suggested Assad could stay in power. McCain protested on behalf of the Syrians being slaughtered by Assad’s barrel bombs, Putin’s aircraft, and Iran’s terrorist proxies. In April 2018, the Senator warned that Donald Trump had emboldened Assad by comments indicating the US might withdraw. (...)

The legacy of the US Senator who was consistently tough on Iran and supportive of the rebellion in Syria and Kurds in the region will have lasting affects. It gained the US affection in places where Washington’s policy zigzagged over recent decades. McCain was a constant, always in support of allies who had fought and died alongside Americans, such as the Kurds in Iraq. He detested dictators such as Assad, and saw no place for mincing words about them. When the time called for action, he was always prepared to join the fight.