Fmr. Asst. Defense Sec. McFarland: US Can't Succeed in Syria

Congress should listen to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, and avoid any involvement in the Syrian civil war, says former Assistant Secretary of Defense K.T. McFarland.

Dempsey has outlined five options, but warned that all of them involve deeper U.S. involvement.

"If that's not a red flag to somebody, I don't know what is," McFarland said Tuesday on Fox Business Network's "Lou Dobbs Tonight."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is "absolutely wrong" in his push to intervene in Syria, she said.

"You have the military saying this is not going to work out well," McFarland said. "You've seen the example of Libya where we did arm the rebels … and at the same time you see what happened to those weapons that we gave those rebels. They turned around and were used against us in Benghazi."

The cardinal rule in Washington, she noted, is that if you have two enemies fighting each other, do not try to step in and stop them.

There might have been a option two years ago to arm some of the rebels, McFarland said, but there are so many rebel groups now that it is no longer an option, especially since the strongest group is affiliated with al-Qaida.

"There are other rebel groups that are well-meaning and secular and are good guys, but they're not going to win," she said.