AUS cruise missile attack on a Syrian air base might persuade Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to be more cautious with some of his tactics, but will not deter him and his allies from pressing a full-throttle military campaign to crush rebels.
It was the first time Washington has directly targeted al-Assad’s government in six years of civil war and has pushed the administration of US President Donald Trump into proclaiming that Washington still wants al-Assad removed from power.
However, the single volley of Tomahawk missiles was of such limited scope that it will reinforce the view held by Damascus and its allies that the US is no more eager than before to take the sort of strong action needed to defeat him.
Illustration: Mountain People
“[Al-]Assad now knows there is a red line with regard to the use of chemical weapons, but I think he also probably just sees it as a slap on the wrist,” said David Lesch, professor of Middle East history at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and an author on Syria.
“[Al-]Assad has to recalibrate, but not fundamentally change his military approach that they’ve been engaging in since the Russian intervention,” Lesch said. “I really believe they are not feeling too bad today, if this is the extent of what the US is going to do.”
Damascus denies carrying out the chemical attack that provoked the US response.
The attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in the rebel-held province of Idlib near the Turkish border killed at least 87 people, 31 of them children.
Al-Assad has responded with characteristic defiance, vowing to accelerate efforts to wipe out rebels he calls terrorists.
A joint command center representing his Russian, Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah allies said the US attack would only cause them to redouble their support for the Syrian government.
Airstrikes have continued unabated since the US attack on Friday. Eighteen people were reportedly killed in one strike alone in Idlib on Saturday. Though damaged, the Shayrat air base near Homs is partly operational and flights have taken off.
The base was largely evacuated before the US strikes, after Washington forewarned Moscow, which in turn alerted the Syrian government, according to a senior military source in the alliance fighting in support of al-Assad.
Describing the US attack as a “limited strike” that was quickly over, another senior ally of al-Assad in the region said toppling him did not seem to be a priority for Trump.
“There is still no clear American policy on Syria,” the ally said.
Although the attack had shown Trump to be unpredictable, a third official in the pro-al-Assad alliance did not yet see a major shift in the US’ approach.
“Is this a strategic shift by the Americans? Do they want to get into a big problem with the Russians? I don’t think there is a strategic shift,” the official said.
Washington says it acted because Syrian aircraft bombed Khan Sheikhoun with sarin, a banned nerve agent that Damascus pledged to give up in 2013 after then-US president Barack Obama threatened to bomb as punishment for another alleged gas attack.
Moscow and Damascus say the deaths were the result of a Syrian airstrike on a depot where rebels were making chemical weapons that then leaked into the town — a claim rebels deny and Washington dismisses as beyond credibility.
The attack marked a departure from the approach of Obama, who ran a large-scale air campaign in Syria against fighters from the Islamic State group, but avoided direct entanglement in the parallel civil war to unseat al-Assad.
The Obama administration provided limited support for anti-al-Assad rebels, but never directly struck government targets after Obama called off such strikes four years ago, at a time when Trump also said attacking al-Assad would be a mistake.
Ahead of his election victory, Trump had attacked Obama’s approach in ways that appeared to suggest he would back off of calls to remove al-Assad.
He questioned the wisdom of backing rebels, suggested that Washington should work more closely with Russia to fight the Islamic State group, and noted that while he did not like him: “[Al-]Assad is killing ISIS,” using an acronym for the group.
The first two months of Trump’s presidency passed with little said about al-Assad’s government, while extra US troops arrived to help Kurdish and Arab militias in northern Syria fight against the Islamic State.
A few days ahead of the chemical attack, two top US officials made their clearest pronouncements yet on Syria, saying that Washington was not now focused on making al-Assad leave power and the focus was on defeating the Islamic State.
Some analysts believe the March 30 comments by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley emboldened al-Assad ahead of the Khan Sheikhoun attack.
“I think they were overconfident. I think they felt that they could certainly get away with it — if in fact [al-]Assad did order this — because Idlib is controlled by al-Qaeda affiliates and the Russians are striking there, and the US has also struck there,” Lesch said.
Since the attack, Trump has struck a tough tone, saying that “something should happen” with al-Assad, but not yet saying what that should be.
Haley has made an about-face on her previous remarks, saying on Saturday that al-Assad’s removal was a priority.
Tillerson seemed to take a more patient stance in regard to al-Assad, saying on Saturday that Washington’s first priority was the defeat of the Islamic State.
Tillerson has also said there was no role for al-Assad in Syria’s future.
The Syrian opposition, which long accused the Obama administration of inaction, wants the US attack to be the start of a more aggressive policy toward al-Assad.
Syrian rebel groups on Friday said that the US’ “responsibility” did not end with the missile attack.
“We are waiting for the American administration to reveal its complete vision for the Syrian file,” prominent Syrian opposition politician George Sabra siad.
Al-Assad, whose forces have been in a much stronger position since receiving military backing from Russia in 2015, continues to press his advantage in a war that has killed more than 400,000 people and driven half of Syrians from their homes.
Military pressure and siege tactics have forced rebels out of numerous strongholds in recent months, including eastern Aleppo and areas near Damascus.
The opposition says al-Assad is forcibly displacing his opponents to remote parts of Syria in deals that offer rebels safe passage out, calling it a policy of demographic change.
One such agreement moved ahead on Saturday as planned.
Syrian state TV said the Waer district of Homs city area would be declared “free of weapons” this month.
The evacuation is taking place in phases, with Russian oversight on the ground.
Several hundred more fighters left Waer on Saturday, which has been besieged for years, for northern Syria with their families. They are being taken by bus to rebel-held areas of northern Syria, accompanied by Russian forces.
A Russian general interviewed by Syrian state TV said that the US attack would not derail implementation of the deal.
Al-Assad, in an interview before the US attack, made clear that so-called local “reconciliation” agreements remain central to his strategy, along with military action.
Citing recent rebel attacks in Damascus and Hama, he said there could be no “results” with opposition groups at UN-backed peace talks.
There is no “option but victory,” he said.
US President Donald Trump last week told reporters that he had signed about 12 letters to US trading partners, which were set to be sent out yesterday, levying unilateral tariff rates of up to 70 percent from Aug. 1. However, Trump did not say which countries the letters would be sent to, nor did he discuss the specific tariff rates, reports said. The news of the tariff letters came as Washington and Hanoi reached a trade deal earlier last week to cut tariffs on Vietnamese exports to the US to 20 percent from 46 percent, making it the first Asian country
On Monday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) delivered a welcome speech at the ILA-ASIL Asia-Pacific Research Forum, addressing more than 50 international law experts from more than 20 countries. With an aim to refute the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) claim to be the successor to the 1945 Chinese government and its assertion that China acquired sovereignty over Taiwan, Lin articulated three key legal positions in his speech: First, the Cairo Declaration and Potsdam Declaration were not legally binding instruments and thus had no legal effect for territorial disposition. All determinations must be based on the San Francisco Peace
As things heated up in the Middle East in early June, some in the Pentagon resisted American involvement in the Israel-Iran war because it would divert American attention and resources from the real challenge: China. This was exactly wrong. Rather, bombing Iran was the best thing that could have happened for America’s Asia policy. When it came to dealing with the Iranian nuclear program, “all options are on the table” had become an American mantra over the past two decades. But the more often US administration officials insisted that military force was in the cards, the less anyone believed it. After
During an impromptu Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally on Tuesday last week to protest what the party called the unfairness of the judicial system, a young TPP supporter said that if Taiwan goes to war, he would “surrender to the [Chinese] People’s Liberation Army [PLA] with unyielding determination.” The rally was held after former Taipei deputy mayor Pong Cheng-sheng’s (彭振聲) wife took her life prior to Pong’s appearance in court to testify in the Core Pacific corruption case involving former Taipei mayor and TPP chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). The TPP supporter said President William Lai (賴清德) was leading them to die on
RSS