Trump Orders Missile Strike Against Syria

The U.S. military launched Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian air base on Thursday, a U.S. defense official said.

The official declined to offer any further details, saying the number of missiles was in the dozens and the target was only one base.

Multiple news outlets reported that President Donald Trump had ordered the military to fire 50 missiles on the Syrian military sites, serving as the first purposeful U.S. attack on the Bashar Assad regime following six years of civil war. The strikes reportedly targeted al-Sharyat military airfield near Homs.

The decision comes in the aftermath of a strike Tuesday near Idlib employing some form of toxic gas – most experts believe it was Sarin – that killed dozens of civilians, many of them children. The Assad regime denied any involvement. The Russian government, which deployed forces to Syria in 2015 in support of the regime, initially blamed opposition forces. U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, say there is no doubt that the regime is the culprit.

Sen. Marco Rubio told CNN shortly after the news broke that al-Sharyat was where the Syrian planes launched that carried out the chemical attack.

"This is not some symbolic measure. This is a strategic objective," the Florida Republican said.

Tillerson spoke with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on Wednesday. A State Department official said they "got the Russian analysis or readout of what they thought had happened" regarding the gas attack near Idlib.

Top members of Trump's cabinet have hinted the administration might push for Assad's removal from power. Senior military officials, including Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been meeting at the Pentagon in recent days to develop potential military responses for Trump.

Speaking in Palm Beach, Florida, on Thursday ahead of the president's summit with a delegation from China, Tillerson said U.S. officials were "considering an appropriate response for this chemical weapons attack."

He would not rule out that the U.S. would push for Assad's removal from power.

"It is a serious matter," he said. "It requires a serious response."

Talking with reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday, Trump said of Assad, "He's there, I guess he's running things. Something should happen," without offering any specifics.

When asked at a press conference Wednesday alongside the king of Jordan whether the use of chemical weapons crosses a "red line," Trump responded, "It crossed a lot of lines for me."

On the campaign trail, Trump advocated for limited U.S. involvement in the Middle East, and, particularly in Syria, he said Russia should take on more responsibility for ensuring stability.

"My attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much," Trump said Wednesday. "And if you look back over the last few weeks, there were other attacks using gas. You're now talking about a whole different level."

"What happened yesterday is unacceptable to me," Trump said.

Following an uptick in the regime's use of toxic gas in 2013, then-President Barack Obama backed away from initial pledges to use military force in response and instead gave that decision to Congress, which ultimately did not act on it. In 2014, the administration, through Russia, coordinated the Syrian regime's surrendering of its chemical weapons stockpiles to be disposed of aboard a U.S. vessel at sea. There was concern at the time that the regime maintained some of its chemical weapons, which it would either use again or let fall into the hands of extremist networks like the Islamic State group.

It was not immediately clear whether this was intended to be an isolated strike or the first in a campaign against the Syrian regime.

Those with experience in Syria's intensely complicated warzone say military strikes only in response to Syria's use of chemical weapons is a mistake.

"If it turns out to be that this is a one-off, one-time, fire-and-forget, it puts us back into the situation that's basically prevailed since September 2013, where Assad came to believe, 'I can do anything I want to civilian populations as long as I don't do it with chemicals,'" says Fred Hof, Obama's former czar for Syria, now with the Atlantic Council.

Hof also stressed the military importance of having a specific vision of what these strikes are designed to accomplish.

"Having a clear statement of the commander's intent, and a clear idea of the desired end-state, those are essential," Hof says.

It was also not immediately clear under what legal authority the Trump administration launched the strikes. Some lawmakers, including Sen. Tim Kaine, argued the president should first get congressional approval before launching strikes. The Virginia Democrat has long championed the need for a new war authorization for the conflict against the Islamic State group.

Hof says presidents historically find legal ways to justify war campaigns they've decided to wage.

"If the commander in chief decides on a course of action, decides that something absolutely must be done for the national security of the U.S., then the job of the attorneys becomes one of finding it," Hof says.

The conflict in Syria is particularly complicated as two concurrent wars are going on: one between the Assad regime and opposition rebels that began in 2011 and a U.S.-led coalition campaign against the Islamic State group, which used the Syrian civil war as cover for its initial rise in 2013.

The Obama administration made a point of avoiding any military activity involving the civil war.

Roughly 1,000 Americans are on the ground in Syria – 500 special operations and support forces and at least 400 Marines and U.S. Army Rangers providing logistical and artillery support to the coalition fighting the Islamic State group around its strongholds. 


https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-04-06/trump-orders-missile-strike-against-syria