USA TODAY International Edition
SYRIA JARS PRESIDENT’S ATTITUDE ON ASSAD
WASHINGTON After weeks of resisting calls for a tougher stance against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, President Trump denounced Syria on Wednesday over a chemical weapons attack and implied he would adopt a new policy toward the country.
Trump did not provide any specifics about what he might do, and his options against Syria are limited.
The president said photos of women and children killed in the attack changed his attitude toward the Assad regime. “What happened yesterday is unacceptable to me,” he said. The attack “crossed a lot of lines for me.”
If Trump is not committed to ousting Assad, he may work only at the margins, analysts said. Assad, said Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, violated an agreement in 2013 to destroy his chemical weapons stockpile.
“Assad was saying, ‘ I can get away with anything now,’ ” Rubin said. “Trump needs to show it’s not true.” Rubin recommended airstrikes that would knock out Assad’s chemical weapons but not eliminate Assad from power.
Chris Kozak, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said airstrikes are a remote option and pose the risk of weakening Assad while strengthening the Islamic State terrorist group that has fought the Assad regime for years.
Wednesday, Trump and Jordanian King Abdullah pledged to do more to fight the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Trump could broaden sanctions and aim them at Russians and Iranians helping the regime, Kozak said.
The Syrian government’s role in the attack is clear, according to a senior Defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because officials were not authorized to speak publicly about intelligence matters. Radar showed Syrian warplanes were in the vicinity of the suspected chemical weapons attack, the official said.
The Defense official said a military response could imperil U. S. forces on the ground in Syria fighting the Islamic State.
There are several hundred U. S. special operations troops in Syria advising forces arrayed against the Islamic State. A U. S. attack on Assad’s regime could prompt him to target American troops, deepening and complicating the civil war, the official said.
During an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Ambassador Nikki Haley implied the United States might act alone against Syria. “When the United Nations consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action,” Haley said. “For the sake of the victims, I hope the rest of the council is finally willing to do the same.”
Trump’s tougher talk against Syria followed a change in the White House’s National Security Council as senior strategist Steve Bannon was removed as a member of the council’s principals committee.
The president spoke on Syria during a news conference Wednesday with Abdullah. In the White House Rose Garden, Trump blamed predecessor Barack Obama for global troubles ranging from Iran to North Korean nukes.
“The world is a mess,” Trump said. “I inherited a mess, whether it’s the Middle East, whether it’s North Korea, whether it’s so many other things. ... We’re going to fix it. We are going to fix it.”
Speaking hours after another missile test by North Korea, Trump said he would use this week’s summit with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to pressure him to rein in North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un’s government over his nuclear threats. “We have a big problem,” he said, and “we have somebody that is not doing the right thing.”
Trump has said the United States may act against North Korea on its own but has not provided specifics or said whether that might involved pre- emptive military action.
Trump said Obama should have acted after a Syrian chemical attack in 2013, especially after he had declared that such an action would cross a “red line.” Trump opposed bombing Syria at that time as well.