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The Merits of Trump’s Syria Strike Aside, We Need to Bring Back Congress’ Power Over Declaring War

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Amidst the chaos of any sudden use of military force, there are numerous opinions, observations, and pearls of wisdom offered regarding the action. These opinions often fall along non-ideological lines that we are not used to seeing on domestic policy issues. But considering the airstrike against Assad’s airfield last night, there is an opportunity for people on all sides to unite behind the general need for congressional authorization of force. We must move back towards the direction of getting congressional approval at least for protracted engagements that are war in all but name only.

Putting aside any debate over the air strike last night, going forward it is clear both from a political and legal standpoint that any calls for a more protracted engagement in Syria should be backed by a Declaration of War or an Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF). This is a policy that should be enthusiastically embraced by both proponents and opponents of a deeper engagement in Syria.

What the Constitution and the founders said about war powers

It is very clear that our founders, based on the reality of warfare defined in their time, believed that any initiation of offensive action taken against another nation must be approved by Congress. As James Madison said, there must be “rigid adherence to the simple, the received, and the fundamental doctrine of the [C]onstitution, that the power to declare war, including the power of judging of the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature; that the executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war…”

George Washington, in a 1793 letter to the governor of South Carolina regarding conflict with the Creek Indians, made it clear that the question to initiate any major offensive war was out of the hands of the president: “The [C]onstitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.”

On the other hand, any decisions about the execution of the war thereafter or to immediately repel an invasion were placed squarely in the hands of the president. This arrangement was born out of the Article I Section 8 enumerated congressional power to declare war on the one hand, but the president’s role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces on the other.

This is also why Madison had the convention members alter the original draft of the Constitution, which gave Congress the power to “make war,” to a more limited language of “declare” war, making it clear that all operations beyond the initial declaration would not be subject to the chaotic whims of 100 people.

The question of how to square modern day war fighting, communications, transportation, and logistics of urgency and secrecy with Congress authorizing every use of force is a complicated one. One can make a strong argument that the definition of war has changed and that the need for urgent or clandestine action could be justified under Article II commander-in-chief powers. Clearly, this has guided every president since World War II and the fact that we have special operations ongoing in 140 countries. Without addressing one-time urgent surgical strikes, such as last night’s bombing or the broader use of special forces, it’s important that everyone agree we need to move away from the post-WWII trend of almost never getting authorization from Congress for anything, even protracted commitments that are tremendously costly and consequential.

Congressional buy-in is not just a Constitutional requirement, but a strategic one

Although there are many reasons one can posit why we have failed to win most wars post-WWII, it is no coincidence that our losing streak began when we stopped declaring war. A congressional debate over making such a grave commitment and an ensuing declaration of war is not just a constitutional imperative, it is a political and strategic one.

A declaration of war allows the entire representative body of the people to raise the important questions about our strategic interests, definition of the mission, feasibility, and cost of achieving that mission, and the exit strategy. If Congress votes to pass a resolution, it serves as a definitive guide for defining the enemy, how victory is achieved, and what success looks like. This further serves the purpose of rallying the country behind a defined mission because public support is always needed to achieve such victory. This is what we have been lacking in most engagements since WWII.

Based on the statement put out from the Trump administration, it is very possible that last night’s bombing was limited to deterring the proliferation of WMD and is not part of a broader engagement. But if the administration or Republicans in Congress believe we must further engage in the Syria civil war, a view I personally disagree with, even supporters of such action must agree to the imperative of congressional buy-in.

The same way some may argue that the requirement for a declaration of war for any offensive action by the president, in the modern era, necessarily abrogates his role as commander-in-chief, the continuation of endless protracted ground missions in the Middle East without any declaration from Congress completely overrides the unambiguous dictates of Article I powers. Moreover, it ensures that our troops remain in precarious situations indefinitely without any definitive mission or understanding of how to achieve victory. Thus, the opportunity for a congressional debate over authorizing force is good for both opponents and proponents of any given military engagement.

Yet, there is a dangerous notion being peddled by Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and John McCain,R-Ariz., that the AUMF passed by Congress in 2001 is somehow a retroactive catch-all for any engagement against any conventional or non-conventional adversary in the entire Middle East until the end of time. Such a worldview completely vitiates our Constitution and ensures that every new engagement in the Middle East will result in the same failed outcome to which we have grown accustomed. (For more from the author of “The Merits of Trump’s Syria Strike Aside, We Need to Bring Back Congress’ Power Over Declaring War” please click HERE)

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The US Missile Strike Against Syria: What You Need to Know

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For the past five years, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has been given a free pass to murder hundreds of thousands of his own people with impunity. During his tenure, former President Obama used strong language, even implementing a supposed “red-line,” to try and deter the genocidal Syrian leader from further action, but it didn’t work. Assad has continued to push the boundaries of the free world, utilizing weapons of mass destruction to continue his reign of terror over much of Syria. His massive chemical weapons bombardment on innocent women and children this week appears to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for President Trump.

In launching some 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian regime air base Thursday night, President Trump made clear that the use of chemical weapons as an instrument of warfare would not be tolerated. Allowing for such a precedent to be established, one in which tyrants are allowed to use WMDs without consequences, threatens both the security of the American people and the global community.

The Tomahawks were launched from the USS Porter and USS Ross, which were situated in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time of the assault. The Pentagon made clear the missile raid was a “proportional response,” and not part of a larger engagement. The U.S. launch targeted Shayrat Airfield, which was reportedly used as a base for Syrian fighter jets and chemical weapons.

A Pentagon statement said that the strikes have “severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment, adding that the Tomahawks reduced Assad’s “ability to deliver chemical weapons.”

Moreover, the launch sent a signal to the Syrian dictator’s enablers — the Iranian regime and Russia under autocrat Vladimir Putin — that America would no longer “lead from behind” or take a back seat on global security issues.

President Trump’s strike against Assad was praised by American allies in Israel, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and others.

“Tonight, I ordered a targeted military strike on the air base in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched,” President Trump said from his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida Thursday night. “It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson slammed Russia for failing “in its responsibility” to move chemical weapons out of the nation. “Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent in its ability to deliver on its end,” Tillerson said of Russia’s failures.

Syrian state-media is claiming that the U.S. attack killed nine civilians, but provided no proof for its claims. “The United States of America committed a blatant act of aggression targeting one of the Syrian air bases in the Central Region with a number of missiles, leaving 6 people martyred and a number of others injured and causing huge material damage,” Syria’s government-run SANA news agency commented. (For more from the author of “The US Missile Strike Against Syria: What You Need to Know” please click HERE)

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Should We Take out Assad?

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Secretary of State Tillerson says that Bashar Assad is guilty of using chemical weapons against his own people. Former senator Ron Paul says there’s no way Assad would do this at this time. A report on Alex Jones’ Infowars claims that Syrian rebels are responsible for the attack. President Trump blames Obama’s inaction for what happened in Syria.

Do we really know what’s going on in Syria? And even if we did, should we try to remove Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad?

According to Rex Tillerson, “There is no doubt in our mind and the information we have supports that Syria, the Syrian regime under the leadership of Bashar al-Assad are responsible for this attack and I think further it’s very important that the Russian government consider carefully their continued support for the Assad regime.”

According to Ron Paul, “[I]t doesn’t make any sense for Assad under these conditions to all of a sudden use poison gasses,” he continued. “I think there is a zero chance he would have done, you know, this deliberately.”

According to Infowars, “the White Helmets, a al-Qaeda affiliated group funded by George Soros and the British government, reportedly staged the sarin attack on civilians in the Syrian city of Khan Shaykhun to lay blame on the Syrian government.”

Who’s right?

Obviously, the Trump administration has far more intel than any of us, and America has already launched its first attack on an airfield in Syria.

But our previous missteps in the Middle East call for caution. We should not act unilaterally until we have a long-term plan.

Remember Iraq

Think back to Iraq.

We may have had the best intentions in removing Saddam Hussein from power. He was guilty of horrific crimes. But his removal created a vacuum of power in the region. This contributed to the rise of ISIS and the terrible persecution of Christians (and others). What happens if we take out Assad?

Right-wing commentator Paul Joseph Watson expressed his concerns in one tweet: “Regime change in Syria = More dead children More terrorism More refugees ISIS taking the entire country Possible war with Russia. Disaster”.

The problem is that the sarin attack is so ghastly that it feels criminal not to act.

Who can forget the images of the gassed children? Who can forget the picture of the father holding his dead baby twins?

If war is hell, the war in Syria has been a special kind of hell, a literal inferno of suffering. Yet this latest attack has crossed yet another line. But that’s why we must act cautiously and carefully, especially now that we have struck our first retaliatory blow.

Letting Atrocities Force Our Hand

Hundreds of thousands of lives have already been lost. Unspeakable atrocities have already been committed. People have been blown to bits, ripped apart, maimed, tortured, and more.

Children have lost their parents and parents have lost their children. Whole families have been destroyed in a single day. The peace-loving have been butchered side by side with the terrorists. And really bad guys are present on all sides of the battle.

In short, while the sarin attack crossed a definite line, other lines have been crossed time and again. (Do you remember President Obama’s red line?) And so we must act, but we must act prudently. The most recent atrocity, as appalling as it is, cannot force our hand.

Pray for Divine Intervention

What then do we do?

First, if we are not 100 percent sure that the Assad regime is responsible for the chemical attack, we must continue gathering information, even after our first strikes. The lasting controversy over WMDs in Iraq serves as a cautionary warning.

Second, we must think through the long-term regional implications of whatever actions we take. We don’t want to add even greater suffering and instability to the region.

Third, we must do what we can to support the best players in this bloody drama (if such players exist) while doing our best to protect and aid the innocent, like Syrian Christians who have been caught in the crossfire.

Fourth, we must pray for God’s kingdom to come to Syria, in the words of the Lord’s prayer. Only divine intervention can bring real healing to that ravaged nation. (For more from the author of “Should We Take out Assad?” please click HERE)

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After Missile Attack, the Challenges Facing Trump in Syria

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After President Donald Trump was mostly cheered by the international community for his missile strikes targeted at the Syrian government, he must now grapple with how to pair his first use of decisive military force with a strategy to contest a six-year-old war that has challenged the world.

U.S. officials described Trump’s sudden decision to launch 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles against a Syrian air base as a targeted retaliation on the source of a suspected deadly attack on civilians that occurred two days before—and a symbolic show of American power.

But foreign policy experts say that Trump, by inserting himself squarely into a complex battlefield, will have to deal with the aftermath, and decide how he wants to handle the dual challenges of fighting ISIS, and responding to Syria’s dictator leader Bashar al-Assad, whose brutality many blame for inflaming terrorism in the region.

“Last night’s strikes were an act of war. We need to be clear about that,” said Jonathan Schanzer, a scholar in Middle Eastern studies and vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in an interview with The Daily Signal. “The intent here and messaging has been, this was a contained, commensurate response and that’s where this ends.”

“But the question is whether the Russians, Iranians, and Syrians continue to test America’s patience,” he added. “I don’t put it past that axis to continue the atrocities in Syria. The Syrian war certainly has now grabbed the attention of the president, so I wouldn’t rule out future strikes.”

‘Mobilize a Common Strategy’

During the campaign, Trump emphasized his focus in Syria would be on defeating ISIS, the terrorist group that maintains its base in that country, and in the early weeks of his administration, the White House articulated that facilitating the removal of Assad from power was not a priority.

This week, Trump’s calculus seemed to change when the president said the chemical weapons attack had “crossed a lot of lines for me” and that his attitude toward “Syria and Assad has changed very much.”

H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, said Thursday night that he hoped the U.S. strikes on the Syrian government’s infrastructure would “shift Assad’s calculus,” because this was the first time America had taken direct military action against the dictator’s regime.

President Barack Obama had feared being dragged deeper into a civil war that has killed nearly 400,000 people and displaced half the country. He refused to strike Assad’s government after a similar chemical weapons attack in 2013 despite issuing a “red line” that created expectations for military force.

Trump’s action, some experts say, could provide leverage against Assad that the previous administration never had.

“The cruise missile strike sends a strong signal that Assad cannot act with impunity and use chemical weapons,” said Jim Phillips, a Middle East expert at The Heritage Foundation. “It undermines his perceived power and is a powerful warning shot that will constrain his future options. It is crucial to follow up the strike with aggressive and focused diplomacy to mobilize allies behind a common strategy in Syria.”

Yet the the situation on the ground in Syria has changed dramatically since 2013, with Russian troops intermingled among Syrian forces as part of Moscow’s push to keep Assad in power.

“This strike comes four years from when we should have taken another strike in a similar way,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow for national security at the Center for American Progress, in an interview with The Daily Signal. “Now, there is more uncertainty and instability. You don’t want to escalate things and inadvertently kill Russian troops. The chances of retaliation or blowback today are much greater.”

Dealing With Russia

Next week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who, along with Iran and Hezbollah, the U.S.-declared Shia terrorist group, has propped up Assad’s government and provided military support to it.

“We have not really seen the affect of U.S. power on the Russian calculus for the last six years or longer,” Schanzer said. “The previous administration was very circumspect with applying power. The Russians took that as a green light to engage in destabilizing activities in Syria and Ukraine. Whether Trump’s new action has a deterrent effect will be interesting to see.”

Russia’s immediate reaction to Trump’s decision has been to not back down. Dmitry Peskov, a Putin spokesman, told reporters the Russian president “considers the American strikes against Syria an aggression against a sovereign government in violations of the norms of international law, and under a far-fetched pretext.”

The Russian government said it was pulling out of an agreement to minimize the risk of in-flight incidents between U.S. and Russian aircraft operating in Syria.

U.S. military officials later insisted Russia was continuing to comply with the agreement.

Russia’s early rhetoric concerns experts about the possibility of a direct military confrontation with Moscow, which has air defense systems in Syria that can shoot down U.S. aircraft. This could complicate the fight against ISIS, since the U.S.-led coalition until now has been conducting airstrikes mostly without interference from Russia and the Assad government.

“Trump’s decision to strike in Syria only improves the U.S. leverage against Assad and Russia to a limited extent,” said Michael O’Hanlon, director of research for the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution, in an interview with The Daily Signal. “Russia will call our bluff. If we really want them to believe we will dramatically increase our military role in Syria, they know we aren’t serious. I don’t think that’s something Trump wants to do, and I wouldn’t advise it either. As much as I want the war to end, I am not sure I want to risk a U.S.-Russia conflict to do it.”

But James Jeffrey, a deputy national security adviser to President George W. Bush, predicts Russia will increasingly feel isolated because of Trump’s action. Peskov, the Putin spokesman, recently said Moscow’s support for Assad “is not unconditional” and Jeffrey says the international condemnation of the chemical attack could frustrate Russia enough to change its calculus.

“We amassed support from around world for these strikes,” Jeffrey told The Daily Signal in an interview. “That’s something the Russians have to consider. They want to isolate the U.S. and Western world, and that’s not something Russia has now. Putin is outgunned against the U.S. coalition, and isolated internationally. If Trump gives him some way out of Syria through a diplomatic process, why wouldn’t Putin take that?”

‘Has to Stop’

Still, the experts say the Trump administration should proceed cautiously in how aggressively it presses Assad, who remains determined and capable.

Phillips notes that Trump’s strikes only targeted one airfield, not Syria’s air force or chemical weapons capabilities, and he warns there is little the U.S. can do to stop Assad’s security forces from continuing the war, short of taking more military action.

“It would be a mistake to expand the military effort to include the goal of removing Assad,” Phillips said. “That would be a costly and risky mission creep that would entail military clashes with Russia and Iran. And it would bog down the U.S. military in an open-ended effort to stand up and stabilize a post-Assad government. Pressing Assad to step down as part of a political settlement should be a long-term diplomatic goal pursued through sanctions, but ISIS and al-Qaeda should remain the chief targets for U.S. military action in Syria.”

Max Abrahms, a terrorism expert at Northeastern University, is concerned that pushing for the removal of Assad could leave a power gap and make the country even more of a haven for Islamic extremists.

“I worry by weakening the Syrian government’s position, this will help to breathe new life into the al-Qaeda-allied rebels,” Abrahms told The Daily Signal in an interview. “I don’t think Trump wants to get involved into the domestic politics of this country. It will absolutely consume his presidency.”

Even if the Trump administration keeps its word about the limited intent of its missile attack, the experts agree the president has sent a political message that the U.S. can use to its advantage by demonstrating the use of force is on the table.

“This is not George W. Bush going to Iraq in 2003,” Jeffrey said. “There is no doubt in my mind Trump won’t use force to drive Assad out. But he can use military force as part of a diplomatic strategy to get an agreement between Assad and the Sunni majority of his population who he is trying to bomb out of existence. That has to stop and it started stopping yesterday.” (For more from the author of “After Missile Attack, the Challenges Facing Trump in Syria” please click HERE)

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Syria Strikes Signal an End of ‘Leading From Behind’

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With his surprise, 180-degree decision to avenge innocents in Syria, President Donald Trump entered the particle accelerator that is foreign affairs.

The barrage of urgencies—inhumanity, chemical weapons, Syrian civil war, North Korean missiles, Russian warships, truck bombings, ISIS—has streamed his focus into a statesmanship that impresses even his detractors. This reminds us of Trump’s speech to Congress in February where he grew visibly into his presidential shoes.

Taking decisive action in Syria indeed was in the U.S. national interest, not only an understandable human response to a human atrocity. How is it in the national interest? Chemical weapons cannot be tolerated a bit. No excuse exists. Any shadow of their acceptability would quickly become a black cloud over a world cowed into suspicion and fear. Our national interest depends upon a world open to itself and to the future.

How else was this in the U.S. national interest? Well, it also re-establishes U.S. credibility abroad. For friends and foes alike the bombing is a North Star reference point to White House foreign policies still in formulation. And certainly, that point is not a line, red or other. That point? No more “leading from behind.”

From military giants to lone wolves, today’s range of actors has expanded up, down, and sideways. And with their real-time access to global affairs, they are weaponizing most anything, be it information, chemicals, national debt, online data, or delivery trucks.

With his action in Syria, Trump chose to weaponize leadership. And he showed that the United States will use it to its best effect. (For more from the author of “Syria Strikes Signal an End of ‘Leading From Behind'” please click HERE)

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Trump’s First Big Foreign Policy Move a Departure From Stump Speeches

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In what will almost certainly be the defining foreign policy decision of President Donald Trump’s first 100 days seems to be a significant shift from his noninterventionist rhetoric on the campaign trail in facing down Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, longtime critics of the president, praised Trump’s decision to launch 59 Tomahawk missiles at the Syrian government’s Shayrat airfield, where a chemical weapons attack was launched that killed more than 70 Syrian civilians, including children.

Conversely, Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah stressed that Trump should have sought congressional approval before the strikes. Meanwhile, conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham noted the major policy shift.

While some Trump supporters on the pundit side might have been surprised by the strikes, it’s not likely to hurt the president with his supporters throughout the country, said Richard Benedetto, an adjunct professor of government at American University.

“Some Trump folks will be disappointed,” Benedetto told The Daily Signal. “Many of the so-called blue-collar Trump supporters backed him because they did not like to see America get pushed around.”

As a candidate, Trump heavily criticized George W. Bush, a former president of his own party, for launching the Iraq War, while in 2013, he tweeted that President Barack Obama shouldn’t intervene in Syria.

This doesn’t necessarily mean Trump has shifted away from a cautious attitude toward foreign entanglements, said Benedetto, a former White House correspondent for USA Today.

“He could still be a noninterventionist compared to Bush, but at the same time, wants to make it clear he is not Obama,” Benedetto said. “It doesn’t mean he will be an interventionist in other things. But this means he takes chemical weapons seriously and he believes he had to do something.”

During a Rose Garden press conference Wednesday, the president telegraphed a shift before the strike, stating he is flexible.

I don’t have to have one specific way, and if the world changes, I go the same way … I do change and I am flexible and I’m proud of that flexibility, and I will tell you that attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me, big impact. That was a horrible, horrible thing and I’ve been watching it and seeing it, and it doesn’t get any worse than that. And I have that flexibility and it’s very, very possible, and I will tell you it’s already happened that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.

The New York Times ran a story with the headline “Trump’s Far-Right Supporters Turn on Him Over Syria Strike.” However, the story focused mostly on more extreme elements rather than the general Trump supporter or conservatives.

The expectations of Trump as a “restrictionist, realist, or isolationist” during the presidential campaign were miscalculated from the beginning, said Emma Ashford, a research fellow for defense and foreign policy at the libertarian Cato Institute.

“He talked in the campaign about staying out of stupid Middle East wars, but he also talked about Iraq and how we should have taken their oil, and how he would bomb the hell out of ISIS,” Ashford told The Daily Signal. “People tend to focus on whether he is a neocon or like Ron or Rand Paul. They ignore the third way, which is being a restrictionist on humanitarian matters but interventionist in other areas.”

Ashford noted that military presence in the Middle East has increased since Trump became president.

Ashford said that Obama’s decision not to strike Syria in 2013 was sound.

“It worked in that Assad did not use chemical weapons again while Obama was president,” Ashford said.

The change between campaign rhetoric and international affairs isn’t unusual for presidents. Woodrow Wilson campaigned on staying out of World War I. Franklin Roosevelt campaigned on staying out of World War II. Richard Nixon campaigned on exiting the Vietnam War, and George W. Bush shunned nation building, experts said.

“Campaign rhetoric is just designed to get votes,” James Carafano, a national security expert at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “Look at John McCain and Barack Obama in 2008, and they sounded almost identical. There was no way anyone could have predicted Barack Obama’s foreign policy over the next eight years.”

He continued that this is what one should expect from Trump as a businessman.

“This is who Trump is. He deals with what he is dealt,” Carafano said. “If profits are down, he doesn’t hold a press conference to pretend they are not. He deals with it.” (For more from the author of “Trump’s First Big Foreign Policy Move a Departure From Stump Speeches” please click HERE)

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Who Gassed the Syrians?

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While world leaders are pointing fingers at several possible groups responsible for the recent chemical attacks in Syria, at least one man says a definitive answer on who perpetrated the crime is unknowable.

Who is Responsible for the Chemical Strike?

In an interview with The Stream, Johannes de Jong, director of the Christian Political Foundation for Europe, said people may never know which of the possible perpetrators gassed the city of Khan Scheichun. De Jong cooperates with the Syriac-Assyrians in Iraq and Syria to “support a political solution of the communities in both countries in order to secure their free and safe future.” The chemical weapons killed 86 people, including children, reported The Associated Press. De Jong said that both Assad and Turkey-backed rebels have access to chemical weapons. Either party could have committed the massacre. “At this point, you simply can’t know.”

And it’s because of that de Jong said the world leaders must not react hastily. “The last thing a big actor should do is take action. … The U.S. should be careful regardless of the chatter everywhere,” he said. But there are at least three possibilities that could have happened.

Assad.

“But why?” asked de Jong. “There’s no obvious gain [to Assad]. … The scale of the attack would suggest that he did it.” But we just don’t know for certain, he added.

Infighting.

De Jong explains that there are multiple factions of fighting parties in the area. The area has been taken over by Al-Nusra, a terrorist group. The area has experienced a lot of unrest, particularly in the last few months, he said. It’s possible that rebel factions are using captured chemical weapons against each other.

Turkey-backed rebels.

This group has been producing and using chemical weapons. “We know they’ve committed chemical attacks,” de Jong explained, “When it happened in Aleppo the media wouldn’t cover it.” The group did operate a chemical lab in Aleppo, he said.

Another possibility is that Assad accidentally hit a chemical deposit. “That’s not completely impossible,” De Jong said. “We simply cannot know.”

Partisan Reporting

Part of the problem is that the information coming out of the area is highly partisan. Western journalists who could report nonpartisan information won’t take the chance of getting kidnapped, he said, and the chance of getting kidnapped in that area is very high. Even the churches in the area are not reliable because they depend heavily on the “good will” of the Assad regime. De Jong said they’ve decided, “Let’s go with the devil [we] know.”

The Blame Game … Russia?

But the charges of guilt are flying in every direction. President Trump lays the blame squarely on Assad. In a press conference at the White House on Wednesday, President Trump said that “heinous actions by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated.” U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley suggested that the U.S. may take action, so confident was the Trump administration in Assad’s guilt. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson connected Syrian allies to the chemical attack. “Russia and Iran also bear great moral responsibility for these deaths.”

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May called for an investigation by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, The Guardian reported yesterday. May said there cannot be a future for Assad in a “stable Syria.” She added, “I call on all the third parties involved to ensure that we have a transition away from Assad. We cannot allow this suffering to continue.”

U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson also blamed Assad. “All the evidence I have seen suggests that it was the Assad regime who did it, in full knowledge they were using illegal weapons in a barbaric attack on their own people,” he said at a meeting on Syria in Belgium.

The Russian Defense Ministry posted on Facebook that a Syrian airstrike hit rebel workshops, which produced the gas attack. They also allege that terrorists had been moving the chemicals to Iraq. For its part, Russia said its planes were not in the area at the time of the attack. But this theory was quickly shot down by doctors and experts, who agree that the gas was made up of more than just chlorine. A chemical expert, Hamish de Bretton Gordon, said that Russia’s scenario is “completely untrue.” He said that Russia is trying to protect their allies. “…I think this [claim] is pretty fanciful,” he said. …if you blow up sarin, you destroy it.”

Nerve Gas?

Chemical weapons specialist Dan Kaszeta told CNN that Russia’s story is “highly implausible.” “Nerve agents are the result of a very expensive, exotic, industrial chemical process … it’s much more plausible that Assad, who’s used nerve agents in the past, is using them again.”

The World Health Organization said that victims had symptoms consistent with a nerve agent exposure, reported the BBC.

Jerry Smith, leader of the team that oversaw the 2013 removal of Syria’s sarin stockpiles, said yesterday’s film footage shows no physical or trauma injuries. “There is foaming and pinpointed pupils, in particular. This appears to be some kind of organo-phosphate poison. In theory, a nerve agent. What is striking is that it would appear to be more than chlorine. The toxicity of chlorine does not lend itself to the sort of injuries and numbers that we have seen.”

Syria’s Denial

The Syrian government vehemently denied gassing the residents of Khan Scheichun. Syria’s deputy ambassador to the U.N. blame “terrorist groups” for the massacre. Mounzer Mounzer added that “Syria also reaffirms that the Syrian Arab Army does not have any form or type of chemical weapons. We have never used them, and we will never use them.” ABC News reported that Syria’s military denied it used chemical weapons against civilians because the military is too “honorable” to carry out the “heinous” crimes.

They’ve Done It Before

If it was sarin gas, it wouldn’t be the first time Assad used it on his own people. Smith said that the attack “…absolutely reeks of 2013 all over again,” referring to the gas attacks in Damascus that year. The Washington Times reported that victims of the 2013 attack believed rebels were responsible. Following that attack, Smith’s U.N. team oversaw the removal of sarin from Syria. Many believed that Assad had not declared or surrendered all of the chemical weapon. Tuesday’s strike was the largest chemical attack in Syria since the August 2013 attack.

Rebels Aren’t Capable

Even though Assad denies attacking his own people with chemical weapons, many believe the rebels in the area do not have the capability to either produce the deadly chemicals or drop a bomb. British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said that the U.K. doesn’t believe that rebels have weapons that could cause yesterday’s symptoms, reported The Associated Press. However, in a civil war, rebels often capture government weapons and use them themselves.

Planes Dropped the Bombs

Witnesses and victims believe they saw a chemical attack perpetrated by Assad’s regime. Many claimed to have seen gas bombs dropping from military planes. One hospitalized woman told CNN that she “saw blue and yellow after the plane dropped a … bomb.” Another victim described being overcome with the gas “carried by three rockets.” A teenage girl saw a bomb drop from a plane and land on a building nearby. There was an explosion, then what appeared to be a yellow mushroom cloud. “It was like a winter fog,” she said in an interview with The New York Times. Hasan Haj Ali, commander of the Free Idlib Army rebel group, told Reuters, “Everyone saw the plane while it was bombing with gas.”

‘My Son Died Yesterday’

Still, residents of the area aren’t holding out much hope that the latest chemical attack will alter anything. “If the world wanted to stop this, they would have done so by now,” a woman said to The Washington Post. “One more chemical attack in a town the world hasn’t heard of won’t change anything.” She added, “I’m sorry. My son died yesterday. I have nothing left to say to the world.”

Now What?

President Trump, along with leaders from Britain and France, drafted a resolution Tuesday night for the U.N. Security Council. The resolution would condemn the attack and order the Syrian government to “provide all flight logs, flight plans and names of commanders in charge of air operations to … international investigators.”

Just today, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that “steps are underway” with an international coalition to remove Assad from power. Fox News reported that President Trump will be briefed Friday in Florida by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster on retaliatory options for the chemical strikes. (For more from the author of “Who Gassed the Syrians?” please click HERE)

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Trump Must Not Repeat Iraq War Fiasco, Leave Al Qaeda in Control of Syria

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Remember that tragic picture of a drowned Syrian refugee? It broke hearts all around the world. Never mind the story behind it, which soon fell apart. (The family had been living safely in Turkey.)

That photo overwhelmed rational argument. It ended debate. It helped sway Angela Merkel to admit a million Syrian refugees into Europe, via Germany. The continent is still reeling from the results: A rape epidemic in Sweden, “refugees” committing terror strikes in Paris, mass attacks on women in Germany … the list of appalling outcomes goes on and on. Turkey now threatens to send 2 or 3 million more “refugees” from the safety of camps in that country — if the E.U. won’t cave in to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s demands.

It All Happened Before in Iraq

Remember the warnings that Saddam Hussein was preparing nuclear weapons? How about the promise that “Iraqi democrats” like Ahmed Chalabi would set up a pro-American regime in that country and guarantee religious freedom?

Fast forward past the missing WMDs, and the absolute chaos that erupted in that country when we removed its secular strongman. What’s Iraq like now? It’s a firm ally of Iran, with large swathes of the country devastated (or still controlled) by ISIS. One million Christians whose families had lived there since the age of the Apostles are huddling in refugee camps. And the nation still can’t pump its oil.

We Handed Iran to Khomeni

Think back a little further in history, and recall the tragic reports from Iran in the 1970s. I grew up hearing horror stories about what happened to Islamists and Communists at the hands of the Shah’s secret police. (The Shah, while a dictator, protected the rights of women, Christians, and Jews, and was a firm American and Israeli ally.) Those stories are what moved Jimmy Carter to yank out U.S. support.

So we handed that vast country over to the most hidebound Shi’ite extremists. They promptly took U.S. hostages. The threat they posed to their neighbors goaded Iraq into a war of aggression. More than a million people died in the war that resulted. Christians are hunted there now. The Iranian government lowered the age of consent for girls to 9. There is no more freedom now than existed under the Shah. And the country is rolling steadily toward building nuclear weapons that can menace every U.S. ally from Israel to Italy.

We Don’t Know the Culprit, and it Doesn’t Matter

As The Stream has reported, it’s uncertain whether the government of Syria in fact used chemical weapons against al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels. Remember that in 2013, a U.N. official claimed that Syrian rebels were using captured chemical weapons against the government. Johannes de Jong, who is in close touch with Christian militias in Syria, told The Stream that the Turkish military has used chemical weapons against the Kurds near Aleppo — a fact which most media refused to cover. ISIS has used chemical weapons too. It seems that every major faction except the Kurds and their Christian allies has crossed the “red line” and used chemical weapons. So with whom should we side?

If Assad chose this moment to start using chemical weapons again, it was a political blunder of historic proportions. The U.S. had just agreed to set aside his removal from power as a precondition for peace. The “moderate rebels” whom neoconservatives fantasized would transform Syria into a liberal democracy with U.S. aid have turned out to be rarer than hen’s teeth. The weapons the U.S. gave them mostly ended up with al Qaeda factions.

Syria Needs Partition, Not U.S. Occupation

The possible outcomes in Syria have narrowed, and a tolerant, pro-American regime is not an option. It never really was one. Much more likely, and probably desirable, is a decentralized, de facto partitioned Syria. Crush ISIS, and let the rest of the country devolve into reasonably homogenous regions, according to who controls what today (minus, of course, ISIS).

One for Alawites and Christians, composed of the portion now controlled by Assad. (A good deal would require Assad himself to resign and go into exile, and replace him with an Alawite whose hands are comparatively clean of civilian blood.)

One for Arab Sunnis, composed of what’s controlled now by Turkey and its allies linked to al Qaeda.
One for Kurds, Christians, and Arabs opposed to al Qaeda, composed of what’s now controlled by the tolerant, democratically governed Federation of Northern Syria. (Turkey will fight this outcome, however — it opposes any territory for the Kurds, whose cousins it fiercely represses at home.)
There is no realistic prospect, even with Russian help and Trump in office, for Assad to reconquer the country. Nor could he hold it. So why would he do the one thing that would guarantee his ouster from power? Which might force Trump to break his campaign promise to keep U.S. forces out of the Syrian quagmire?

What If Assad Dropped Chemical Bombs?

But let’s allow that it’s possible, even likely that Assad’s forces were the culprit. Assad is a ham-fisted dictator, fighting desperately to protect his own power base and his ethnic group: the Alawites, a minority religious group that is persecuted in virtually every other Muslim country. So are Christians, who likewise are safe in the regions of Syria he still rules.

If we use force to knock out Assad and his government, who will fill the vacuum? The “moderate rebels” beloved of Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham can’t do it. They can’t even hold on to the weapons the U.S. gives them. The Turks won’t permit the Kurds and Syriac Christians to expand into that region. We won’t give it to ISIS.

So the most likely beneficiary of a U.S. attack on the Syrian government will be the powerful coalition of al Qaeda-linked radical Islamists, who are backed by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. If they take over the region with millions of Alawites and Christians, what will these jihadists do to them? Christians on the ground in Syria report that they were “cleansed” by these militias, whom they fear as much as ISIS. Indeed, the worldviews of al Qaeda and ISIS are not fundamentally different. As a native New Yorker who was present for 9/11, I am somehow biased against this outcome.

Should the U.S. Give al Qaeda a Country?

Do we want to send U.S. troops to Syria, which would likely put al Qaeda in control of a major country? To cause the ethnic cleansing of another million Christians, as we made possible in Iraq? To remove the last safe country for Christians in the region, apart from Israel? And all to accomplish what?

To salve our consciences? Because we read an article about an atrocity? Atrocities abound in the region, from the Saudis’ war on civilians in Yemen to the chaos still reigning in Libya after our last humanitarian intervention. Boosters of war always say that “inaction is not an option.” But if every likely or feasible course of action carries the risk of costing more lives and causing more chaos, prudent restraint isn’t just feasible. It’s the only moral option. (For more from the author of “Trump Must Not Repeat Iraq War Fiasco, Leave Al Qaeda in Control of Syria” please click HERE)

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Russia Warns of ‘Negative Consequences’ If U.S. Targets Syria

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Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy, Vladimir Safronkov, warned on Thursday of “negative consequences” if the United States carries out military strikes on Syria over a deadly toxic gas attack.

“We have to think about negative consequences, negative consequences, and all the responsibility if military action occurred will be on shoulders of those who initiated such doubtful and tragic enterprise,” Safronkov told reporters when asked about possible U.S. strikes.

When asked what those negative consequences could be, he said: “Look at Iraq, look at Libya.” (Read more from “Russia Warns of ‘Negative Consequences’ If U.S. Targets Syria” HERE)

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US, Other Nations Challenge Russia’s Claim That Toxic Gas Came From Rebel Weapons Facility

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Amid a barrage of international criticism directed at its Syrian ally, Russia argued Wednesday that those killed by a toxic agent in Syria’s Idlib province were the victims not of chemical-laced bombs dropped by the regime’s planes, but of chemicals released when the air force bombed a rebel storage facility.

The suggestion was challenged during an “emergency meeting” of the U.N. Security Council, where Western nations laid the responsibility for the attack at the door of the Assad regime.

The U.N. high representative for disarmament affairs, Kim Won-Soo, told the council that the attack in Khan Sheikhun on Tuesday had reportedly taken the form of an airstrike on a residential area, although he said the means of delivery could not be confirmed, and noted that the Syrian government has denied responsibility.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says at least 70 people were killed and hundreds more were affected.

“Doctors in Idlib are reporting that dozens of patients suffering from breathing difficulties and suffocation have been admitted to hospitals in the governorate for urgent medical attention, many of them women and children,” it said in a statement that reiterated that “the use of chemical weapons is a war crime.” (Read more from “US, Other Nations Challenge Russia’s Claim That Toxic Gas Came From Rebel Weapons Facility” HERE)

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