The Arab World and the US is faced with a ‘very tough decision’ about whether to forcibly intervene in the Syrian conflict, former US presidential candidate John McCain has warned.

McCain, speaking at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain yesterday, said the internal conflict that has raged through Syria since March 2011 “didn’t have to reach this point”.

The Arizona senator is a critic of the US policy not to supply the Syrian rebels with weapons. And in a withering critique of the approach of US president Barack Obama, the man who beat him to the White House in 2008, McCain said: “Everything that people said would happen if we did not intervene has now happened because we have not intervened.

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   The Arab World and the US is faced with a ‘very tough decision’ about whether to forcibly intervene in the Syrian conflict, former US presidential candidate John McCain has warned

“Growing radicalisation, sectarian conflict, the collapse of the state, and now the spectre of chemical or biological weapons being used.”

McCain’s comments come ahead of a crucial meeting in Morocco of the ‘Friends of Syria’ this week – at which countries will attempt to agree the next step in the process of bringing an end to Bashar Al Assad’s rule.

The politician was sharing a platform in Bahrain with current US deputy secretary of state William Burns, who warned: “The longer the conflict in Syria continues… the greater the danger of spillover into a neighbourhood that already has more than its share of problems and insecurity.”