Prez still a buffoon in a genocide
‘CLEARLY A WAR CRIME’
THE WHITE HOUSE blamed Tuesday’s violence in Syria on the Obama administration’s “weakness” — though the attack came just days after Trump officials including Secretary of State Tillerson and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said the U.S. is backing away from its long-stated goal of getting dictator Bashar Assad out of power. “It's about changing up priorities, and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out,” Haley said Thursday. And despite Trump’s tough talk Tuesday, he had a different take on President Obama and Syria in 2013. “Obama must now start focusing on OUR COUNTRY, jobs, healthcare and all of our many problems. Forget Syria and make America great again!” Trump tweeted that September.
As the world’s gotten to know Donald Trump more intimately over the past year or two — sometimes a little too intimately — one thing has become overwhelmingly apparent: The brash, boardroom tough talk that made him a New York City real estate mogul will not be tempered by the weight and seriousness of the presidency.
There’s been no pivot from locker room talk and buffoonish bravado to a more polished and presidential sense of restraint befitting the office, particularly when it comes to delicate matters of foreign relations.
But Trump’s bark has not, as of yet, been met with much bite. Though Trump has long criticized former President Obama for being too weak with our allies and enemies alike, he’s failed thus far to distinguish himself from his predecessor in any measurable way.
And in one arena in particular, Trump and Obama are no different. Both seem resigned to have allowed Bashar Assad to wage a genocide on the Syrian people.
In fact, Trump looks even more permissive than Obama, who at least on paper supported Assad’s removal.
For six years, the Obama administration dipped its toes in and out of the Syrian civil war, at times aiding rebels, at times vowing not to intervene; once calling for air strikes, then ignoring calls for safe zones; warning Assad not to cross chemical weapons red lines, and doing nothing when he did.
That policy of tough talk and little action did nothing to halt the deaths of more than 500,000 Syrians, including 50,000 children. There are now more Syrian refugees than there are Syrians.
And on Tuesday morning, while Syrian families in Idlib were sleeping, a chemical attack believed to be ordered by the Assad regime killed as many as 100 people, including children, who succumbed to the grotesque and horrific effects of sarin gas.
The Trump administration seems to have no clearer vision — practical or moral — for ending the Syrian slaughter.