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TRUMP: ASSAD MUST PAY ‘BIG PRICE’ FOR GAS ATTACK
President Trump on Sunday vowed that Syrian “Animal Assad” would pay a “big price” for an apparent chemical-weapons attack that killed scores of civilians.
And, in a rare public rebuke, Trump also called out Russian leader Vladimir Putin for supporting the despot.
Rescue workers said at least 42 people — mostly women and children — died in the gas attack on a rebel-held area of Douma, a suburb of Damascus, and reported finding entire families suffocated in their homes with white foam at their mouths.
Officials warned the toll could rise because the strong smell of chlorine gas has hampered efforts to look for other victims.
Trump called for Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad to allow aid groups into the area, and blamed Putin and Iran for backing Assad’s regime.
“Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world,” Trump posted on Twitter.
“President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay. Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!”
Hours later, Syria’s state-run news agency reported a missile attack on an air base in central Syria that resulted in casualties — and said it “is likely to be an American aggression.”
But a spokesman for the Pentagon, Christopher Sherwood, said the United States had launched no such airstrikes.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said Trump’s next move could be a make-or-break moment because adversaries Russia, Iran and North Korea are watching to see how he responds.
“It’s a defining moment in his presidency, because he has challenged Assad in the past not to use chemical weapons,” Graham said on ABC’s “This Week,” adding that Syria sees “our resolve breaking.”
Trump stunned many on his national-security staff Thursday when he suddenly announced that he intends to pull US troops out of Syria “very soon.”
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said that emboldened Assad.
Last April, Trump ordered a cruise-missile attack on a Syrian airfield in retaliation for Assad’s use of sarin gas against civilians.
The president will meet with his top military advisers on Monday, the first day on the job for his new national security adviser, John Bolton. The United Nations Security Council, too, will also discuss Syria on Monday.
In his tweets, Trump also took a shot at his predecessor.
“If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!” Trump said.
Syria denied launching a chemical attack, and Russia called the reports “bogus.”
President Trump was instantly tweeting tough about Bashar al-Assad’s latest atrocity, the gassing of civilians in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta. But America’s response this time should be more than Trump’s answer to Assad’s use of chemical weapons a year ago.
It’s time for Washington to declare a nofly zone in Syria east of the Euphrates, the region Trump freed from ISIS occupation. Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies don’t deserve to win the fruits of America’s war there, nor should Turkey be allowed to take its insane vendetta against the Kurds into an area the Trump administration liberated.
If America pulls out, as Trump suggested earlier in the month, the forces who helped defeat ISIS and the civilians they now protect will be at the mercy of thugs just as brutal.
As Bloomberg’s Eli Lake notes, US declaration of a no-fly zone — and at least implicit guarantees of other action if needed — won’t be nation-building, nor risk getting bogged down in a quagmire. It’s simply a repeat of the first President George Bush’s action after the first Gulf War, when he declared similar protection for Iraqi Kurdistan.
That move let the Iraqi Kurds build a decent (if imperfect) free society outside Saddam Hussein’s grasp, which left them positioned to help the United States in the Second Gulf War and ever since. They remain a key ally in checking Iran’s influence in the region — while mainly taking care of themselves, at no risk to US troops.
A year ago Saturday, Trump launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at the airfield that hosted an earlier Assad chem attack. Plainly, the lesson wasn’t learned, or perhaps the dictator figured the president’s recent remarks about leaving Syria once ISIS is toast were a license to slaughter freely again.
Either way, Assad and everyone else in the region needs to know that Trump is no patsy, that America will stand by its friends and against barbarism. Another round of Tomahawks might prevent more chem attacks. But Assad — with help from Russia, Iran and the terrorists of Hezbollah — will commit plenty of atrocities with conventional weapons, as they have throughout this war.
And Iran will gain control of the entire Northern Middle East, from Lebanon through Syria and Iraq — freeing it to push harder in Yemen and Bahrain and threaten a conflagration that will reach Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf, as well as Israel.
At a minimum, as Lake warns, by completely pulling out, Trump “will be leaving the people who were liberated from ISIS to be slaughtered and displaced. He will be helping Iran complete its land bridge to the Mediterranean Sea. He will have committed American blood and treasure to advance the strategic aims of America’s enemies.”
Drawing a line at the Euphrates, by contrast, will create a refuge for those saved from ISIS and Assad & Co. — and a chance for those US-allied fighters to build a free society that checks Iran’s ambitions.
It may not be the post-ISIS endgame Trump hoped for, but it’s the only way not to hand the fruits of this US victory to America’s enemies — and the enemies of civilization.