President Obama’s failure to stand by his “red line” on chemical weapons in Syria will have further consequences, not just in the country’s civil war but beyond it, according to Senator John McCain.

He is confident that reports of the Assad regime’s using chemical weapons on Syrian rebels are accurate, and said “they will use [such weapons] again unless they are reined in and prevented from doing so.”



Further, “this gives a blank check to other brutal dictators around the world if they want to use chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction as well,” McCain said on CNN’s New Day.

Later in the interview, the senator made it clear that intervention does not require having “boots on the ground,” but would likely mean aerial intervention.

“When does the United States, with very little cost, stand up to these people and stop these horrific [events]?” McCain asked. “Are we just going to let that go on?”