Trump considers war after Syria chemical attack
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday considered whether to unleash American military might to punish Syrian strongman Bashar Assad after a chemical attack this week that killed dozens of civilians, including children, and drew global outrage. As Trump weighed the use of force, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the president had also begun a difficult diplomatic campaign to remove Assad from power.
Privately, top U.S. officials dismissed the notion that Trump planned to forcibly remove Assad. One top administration official told Yahoo News that any strikes under consideration would be designed “as a response” to Tuesday’s attack in a mostly rebel-controlled area near the Turkish border — not for “regime change” in Damascus.
The chemical attack is “a serious matter, it requires a serious response,” Tillerson told reporters at a press conference in Florida. The top U.S. diplomat sketched out a long, difficult and potentially fruitless effort to push Assad from power.
“The process by which Assad would leave is something that I think requires an international community effort, both to first defeat ISIS within Syria, to stabilize the Syrian country, to avoid further civil war, and then to work collectively with our partners around the world through a political process that would lead to Assad leaving,” he said. Pressed on whether he and Trump were working to assemble an international coalition to achieve that goal, Tillerson replied: “Those steps are underway.”
The secretary of state also had tough words for Moscow, Assad’s patron. “It is very important that the Russian government consider carefully their continued support for the Assad regime,” he said.
And he reaffirmed what senior U.S. officials have said since the world first saw footage and photographs of gasping, dying or dead children in Khan Sheikhoun, a locality in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib — Assad is to blame.
“There is no doubt in our minds and the information we have supports that Syria, the Syrian regime on the leadership of President Bashar al-Assad, are responsible for this attack,” Tillerson said.
Trump contacted key lawmakers early Wednesday about Syria. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain told Fox News that he had spoken by telephone with the president. “He’s angry, as he well should be, and he’s consulting with his military leadership as well as his secretary of state, and I have some optimism that he will take some concrete action here,” the Arizona Republican said.
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