The price Syria’s Assad should pay for gassing his people
The hellish scenes have played out before in Syria: women and children dead or suffering in agony, the targeted victims of chemicalweapons attacks. Nowit has happened again. The villain apparently responsible is Syrian President Bashar Assad, who should be made to pay a heavy price.
OnMonday, theworld awaited action by President Donald Trump, evidently the only major leader able and willing to punish Assad for despicable acts of terror against noncombatants in a grinding civilwar. “Big price to pay,” Trumpwarned in a tweet Sunday, suggesting retaliatory strikes by theU.S. military may be coming.
Aid groups and news agencies reported that in the midst of airstrikes Saturday by the Assad regime against rebels outside Damascus, civilianswere overcome by poison fumes. Several dozen people choked to death, while others suffering from breathing problems and burning eyes sought medical attention. Videos showed chaotic scenes of men, women and children slumped on floors.
The Syrian government’s use of chemicalweapons in suburban Douma couldn’t immediately be corroborated because the area is cut off, but these attacks using outlawedweapons of war are one of Assad’s signatures. No doubt he is to blame. A year ago, he used chemicalweapons in an attack on a rebelheld area, killing dozens of civilians. That attack triggered a swift decision by Trump to launch a fusillade of Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase. The damagewas intentionally limited and proportional, but it sent a message that theUnited States won’t look the otherway when a madman gasses his own people.
The seven-yearwar in Syria, with estimates of death tolls in the 400,000 range, is as intractable as it is barbaric. In Assad’s conflict with rebels, he obliterated Aleppo, targeting hospitals and killing thousands of residents by dropping bombs fromhelicopters on neighborhoods.
Chemicalweapons are another trick in his book. In the year since Trump’s Tomahawk attack, Assad appears to have used poison gas, showing that a U.S. response has its limits. But that doesn’t mean inaction is acceptable.
The mainU.S. role in Syria has been to lead the coalition attacking Islamic State militants, whomoved into the vacuum of a near-lawless country but nowhave been driven fromtheir territory. That part of the overall conflict has gonewell enough that Trump has mused he’d like to bring home the 2,000U.S. military personnelworking alongside SyrianKurdish allies. Trump, with his inclination to put “America first,” seems primed to avoid or end foreign engagements when possible. Butwe think a departure fromSyriawould be unwise: A continued but limitedU.S. presence will support and protect theKurds, keep Islamic State on the run - and keep the Russians and Iranians off balance as they continue their dirty work of supporting Assad.
So why should Trump respond at all to another of Assad’s dastardly deeds? Because if Assad again is caught using chemicalweapons, he should feel American wrath. Even in a broken country amid unending horrors, acts of state-sanctioned evil such as the poisoning of civilians cannot stand.
Trump appears to understand that. Having responded militarily last year, and having criticized President Barack Obama for inaction, this president has every reason to make anothermove against Assad. If he approves an attack on a Syrian airfield, or goes further and destroys much of Syria’s air force, he will be making a sober decision amid the chaos.
This editorial was first published in the Chicago Tribune.