Given the coordination between Russian and United States officials around the attack – the former were given ample warning – it is unlikely that the conflict will continue to escalate beyond the boundaries of the current Russian-American understanding.
Advertisement
It is also closing down a hotline with the USA created to avoid collisions between their air forces over Syria.
Assad and his key backers, Iran and Russian Federation, will in turn double down on their own positions.
“We don’t need any scenario like what happened in Iraq, like what happened in Libya, happening in Syria”, he said.
Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, in Florida with Trump, said on Friday the United States would announce additional sanctions on Syria in the near future but offered no specifics.
He doesn’t want to see the US take military action in Syria, he said, especially if it’s going to end up like the situation in Iraq.
US Ambassador to UN and current UN security council president, Nikki Haley leaves after presiding a United Nations Security Council meeting on Syria, at the UN headquarters in NY on April 7, 2017.
“If Trump hits them again in reaction to an increased pace of attacks against Western-supported rebels, pro-government forces (in Syria) can be expected to simply hit the rebels even harder-just not with chemicals”, White said. For that to happen, he said, “this oppressive Assad needs to go”. “But the problem wasn’t that Congress wasn’t seen as lacking in responsibility, it was that the president was seen as having drawn a “red line” and when it came time to act on it, he didn’t and that had an impact on the way the USA was seen in the aftermath”.
The rebels of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) described the United States attack as a turning point in “eliminating the impunity” and a “military pressure against the Syrian army to put an end to its violations”.
Trump also ignored Russia’s shameless prevarications. The Pentagon has also signalled interest in determining any Russian complicity.
While the Syrian opposition applauded the USA cruise missile attack on the airbase near Homs, it said it should not be a one-off and was not enough on its own to stop government warplanes from hitting rebel-held areas. They say it gives the former real estate mogul breathing room to learn on the job and accept advice from more seasoned advisers.
In launching missiles toward Syrian air bases, the president seized the moment in a way that established his willingness to use force before bad actors reach a fictitious red line.
Many were still reeling from the news this week of a deadly chemical attack blamed on the Assad government, which brought gruesome photos and videos they could hardly bring themselves to watch but could not ignore.
A scheduled visit by British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to Russian Federation was canceled, part of the fast-moving fallout from the Syrian attack and the American response. There was no independent confirmation of civilian casualties.
Two days earlier, Trump ordered the launch of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles against the airbase from US Navy ships based in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The United States warned Russian Federation ahead of the attack.
The office of the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a Facebook post that the Americans initiated a phone call with Russia on Saturday, ahead of Tillerson’s planned trip to Moscow next week.
Syrian families who fled the war have shared stories of bombings, kidnappings and robberies on their journey from their home to eventual resettlement in the U.S. Some Americans have “adopted” newly arrived Syrian families in an effort to help them feel welcome and adjust to life in the U.S.
Advertisement
“There can be a shared commitment to defeat ISIS and also agree that you can’t gas your own people”.
