Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that the United States should provide Syrian rebels with weapons.
"I'd like to see us take a side," Lieberman said in an interview with CBS's "This Morning."
"I don't think it's enough ... for us to say Assad should go, Assad's a dictator ... We have a moral responsibility and a strategic opportunity to do more than what we're doing there," he said.
"So what would I do," he continued, "I'd embrace the cause of the opposition to Assad; I'd begin to work with them closely. I'd give them weapons — that's the key."
The bloody violence in Syria has intensified, with fighting spreading to the center of Aleppo, Syria's largest city.
Lieberman, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, argues that while the United States should support rebels fighting Assad, American soldiers should stay off the ground.
At the same time, Lieberman says, the United States would be wise to "leave open the option" for the use of American aircraft to disrupt Assad's airstrikes on his own people.
Lieberman suggested he is worried Assad will not heed the warnings of Russia and other nations not to use chemical weapons against his own people.
"This is a desperate man who gives every indication of holding on so long he may destroy his country," Lieberman said.
