According to sources like this one, Syria’s Assad regime is once again probably using sarin nerve gas against his own civilians. The sarin, possibly dropped from Russian aircraft, killed dozens including eleven children and injured hundreds.
The Obama Administration opposed Assad and his war crimes and induced Assad to stop using sarin gas for almost four years. However, recently a top Trump official used the exact same linguistic euphemism as is used by the Moscow-Damascus-Teheran axis:
[QUOTE=Rex Tillerson]
The longer-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people.
[/QUOTE]
Amusingly, although it was Obama who got Assad to stop the sarin attacks, and Trump who has been pro-Russia and pro-Assad, Sean Spicer blamed “the past administration’s weakness and irresolution.”
So, did Assad take Tillerson’s language as a signal that he was again free to commit war crimes? (There may not be enough unclassified evidence for debate, so Mods should feel free to move this to IMHO … or the Pit.)
Well, according to this wiki article, it doesn’t look to me as if Syria ever really stopped. So, not sure how to answer the OP. I think that Syria was one of Obama’s big mistakes, to be honest. And, just for the record, I voted for the man…twice. And would have happily voted for him for a 3rd term if it was allowed (especially considering who won :p). Oh, I totally get WHY Obama did what he did…the US had already put our foot in it with Iraq and Obama was trying to disengage the US from getting more entangled in the ME. But…I think the lack of US leadership on Syria, especially when Syria used chemical weapons against it’s own people, was a huge mistake.
That said, I also tend to think that Syria (and maybe Russia) have taken the often less than precise language and convoluted tweets as a tacit agreement that the US will stay out of things and let them handle it by Trump et al. This was certainly a brazen attack by Syria and Russia, especially the part about hitting the clinic that those wounded were taken to after the gas attack in subsequent strikes.
I doubt it. Your site says he also used sarin gas in Dec of last year, and this site says he also used it in May of last year. The US has no leverage to use against Assad, so he has to know that “Assad must go” is nothing by empty rhetoric.
Not everything that happens in the world happens because the US did or did not do something. We seem to have an oversized opinion of how important we are.
Um…I don’t think we do overestimate that, really. I think a lot of people try and underestimate the US’s impact on the rest of the world. The US has a huge impact on what does or doesn’t happen in the world. In Syria, our impact is from basically being hands off, and that impact is that Assad is still in power and the civil war is grinding on, and that Assad/Russia is essentially free to do what he wants wrt using weapons like gas attacks, direct and deliberate attacks on hospitals, use of things like barrel bombs and the like. If the US had decided all the way back in 2013 (or at the start of the civil war) that this was unacceptable AND we were willing to follow through on it then…well, it might have been as much of a cluster fuck as Iraq (though I have to think Obama et al would have done a better job than Bush and his merry men did), but Assad would have stopped doing those things one way or the other.
Seriously, think about what you are saying here in the context of the US. We aren’t involved because we CHOSE not to be involved. We haven’t had an impact because, again, we CHOSE that. We certainly could have gotten as involved as we liked, and if we had it would have had a decisive impact, whether good or bad. No other country, not even Russia had the choices and options that the US did or still does. And when stuff like Assad and Russia do what they have been doing happens, it kind of is on the US that we stood by and let it happen. Not many other countries bear the same level of responsibility for something like this clusterfuck since really no other country could act decisively…and chose not to.
At this point it’s difficult to see that Assad cares what we think. This guy is fighting for his life right now, he loses he dies, he’s not going to hold back because we might disapprove. And victory for him means eliminating most of the opposition, so he might pick up the pace on the weapons of the mass destruction variety.
At this point, he DOESN’T care what we think. That train has pretty much left the station, and no way President Carrot Top is going to change things substantially. I wouldn’t characterize Assad as really ‘fighting for his live’ anymore, btw…I’d say at this point he figures he’s in the home stretch of putting this thing away, and while there are probably years still ahead, it’s pretty clear that, as of right now, he’s going to come out on top and regain most of his initial territory. If his kingdom is one more of the dead and fled, well…gots to break some eggs to make an omelet and all that.
That Septimus, is some quality spin. I’m talking A+ spin. And if that was used by Spicer, there would be an epidemic of Dopers with their boxers in a bunch.
Obama’s effort to separate his foreign policy from Bush’s, set the tone that the peace loving peoples of America were not going to start any trouble. That emboldened Assad to use gas. Obama’s famous “red line” only reinforced that foreign policy wasn’t going to be the cornerstone of his administration.
To somehow say now that Obama had this whole thing under control until Trump got elected is rich to say the least.
It’s not as rich as the current claim that somehow Obama is still controlling the country (would that it were so).
Trump is the President. Obama is not. If Trump thinks he has a plan to stop Assad from using nerve gas, Obama can’t do a thing to stop him from carrying out that plan.
And if Trump doesn’t have a plan for stopping Assad, he should cut some slack for Obama not having had a plan either.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
And if Trump doesn’t have a plan for stopping Assad, he should cut some slack for Obama not having had a plan either.
[/QUOTE]
Trump has a plan for stopping Assad - let him (and Russia/Iran/Hezbollah) win. Eventually after Assad has won, he might eventually consider stopping the chemical weapons attacks. Or at least slowing his roll on them.
[QUOTE=Future President Donald Trump circa September 2013]
The only reason President Obama wants to attack Syria is to save face over his very dumb RED LINE statement. Do NOT attack Syria,fix U.S.A.
[/quote]
[QUOTE=Future President Donald Trump circa September 2013]
President Obama, do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremendous downside. Save your “powder” for another (and more important) day!
[/quote]
If the sarin was dropped from Russian aircraft, then Assad isn’t using chemical weapons agaisnt civilians - Putin is. The Russian military does not take orders from anyone other than the Russian government.
I don’t know that. Do you?
Unless it’s Sarin, which is more difficult to produce, why couldn’t they have made some?
Even if it is Sarin, someone could have provided them with it.
Someone gave them state of the art anti-tank missiles, after all.
As it is difficult to prove who did what, I am left with the fact that neither Assad nor Putin have any real motive to use poison gas. Rather the opposite.
Al Qaeda does have to gain, using gas on innocent civilians.