President Donald Trump and his advisers see the chemical attack in Syria as a test of his mettle as adversaries around the globe size up the new administration.
Trump, in public comments, highlighted the horrific images of Syrian children gassed to death by their own government. But internal White House deliberations are focusing on military and political risks as well as projecting an image of U.S. strength, according to officials familiar with the discussions.
The attack’s brazen nature adds to its significance for Trump, as does Russia’s initial signal that it’s standing by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the officials said. There also is the knowledge that North Korea may be watching the U.S. response to Syria for cues as the regime there calculates how far it can push with its missile and nuclear tests.
Trump’s first international crisis is unfolding just as he takes on another delicate foreign policy challenge: his initial meeting on Thursday with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He will be deliberating the U.S. response in Syria as he hosts the leader of the U.S.’s prime strategic and economic rival at Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Trump’s national security team is concerned about the message that will be received by the rest of the world if he fails to act or, having acted, fails to rally Congress and the U.S. public behind his response, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal policy debate.
Red Lines
While Trump repeatedly urged his predecessor not to attack Syria after the regime used chemical weapons against civilians in 2013 -- saying so more than a dozen times on Twitter -- he nonetheless criticized President Barack Obama for having drawn a “red line” at the use of gas and then failing to back it up. Now Trump has drawn his own line.
At a White House press conference on Wednesday, Trump said Assad’s April 4 chemical weapons attack, which killed more than 70 people including women and children, “crosses many, many lines, beyond red lines.” He added that “these heinous actions by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated.”
Obama’s justification for not imposing consequences after Assad’s forces used sarin gas on civilians in a Damascus suburb was that he cut a deal with Russia that in the end accomplished more than a military strike could have. Under it, Assad allowed international inspectors into the country to find and remove Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles. The attack this week demonstrates Assad reneged on his commitment and strips away that rationale.
Military Options
The Pentagon is actively developing military options for Syria, according to one U.S. official who requested anonymity to discuss planning. The U.S. could avoid putting its personnel directly at risk by using standoff weapons, such as Tomahawk cruise missiles, to target Syrian military sites, another U.S. official said.
Trump has spoken with Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster about the attack and U.S. options for a response, another administration official said. He plans to expand his discussions, the official said, on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Tillerson said Tuesday’s attack, which outside groups said bore the hallmark of sarin gas, “is a serious matter. It requires a serious response.”
Trump’s presidential election opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, indicated she would launch a military strike were she in the White House. “I believe we should have, and still should, take out his airfields and prevent him from being able to use them,” Clinton said at a Women in the World event in New York.
The chemical attack and latest North Korea missile launch on Wednesday, just before Trump’s summit with Xi, “are the most serious challenges he’s had to face as president,” said Nicholas Burns, a former undersecretary of state in President George W. Bush’s administration who is now a Harvard University professor.
“He owns this,” Burns said. “President Obama is no longer the president and President Trump has to be the one that gives us a way forward. And we have not heard that.”
Global System
James Jeffrey, a former ambassador to Turkey under Bush and Iraq under Obama, said since the World War II era, there has been a “global, collective security, legal and economic world system” led by the U.S. and the United Nations, the relevance of which Trump starkly questioned in his presidential campaign. Now the twin crises in Syria and North Korea test how Trump actually views the global order and the U.S. interest in maintaining it
“China and Russia seriously think at some point that they can take down this global order,” Jeffrey said. “Chaos and war and regional bullies like North Korea and Syria and Iran are basically assets in pulling this system down.”
Jeffrey said there are concrete steps Trump can take that would set him apart from Obama, such as military strikes against select targets in Syria or shooting down a North Korean missile. But unless Trump clearly sets a new direction and says “give me something to get to that result,” it’s likely the U.S. bureaucracy will “default to a slightly dressed up version of Obama’s policies.”
Syria’s six-year civil war has only become more complex since Obama wrestled with Assad’s 2013 sarin gas attack. Russia intervened on Assad’s behalf in late 2015, adding to a fight that now includes Iranian, Turkish, Syrian and extremist forces. Any U.S. escalation risks making a bad situation even worse.
The president is “being presented with a lot of options,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday, adding that he wouldn’t preview those alternatives until Trump is ready to decide. He said the president has spoken to other leaders about the possibility of setting up “safe zones” to protect civilians. While hundreds of U.S. special forces are already inside Syria, those troops are focused on targeting Islamic State.
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