White House Syria Statement Raises Eyebrows

by Derek Davison

The Trump administration may be gearing up for another military strike against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s military. Late in the day on Monday, the White House released the following statement:

The United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children. The activities are similar to preparations the regime made before its April 4, 2017 chemical weapons attack.

As we have previously stated, the United States is in Syria to eliminate the Islamic of Iraq and Syria. If, however, Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and neoconservative favorite, followed up that statement by tweeting, “Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Assad, but also on Russia & Iran who support him killing his own people.”

The White House hasn’t offered any further comment as to the nature of the alleged “preparations” or how the U.S. “identified” them. On Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said that U.S. intelligence had seen activity suggestive of chemical weapons preparations at Syria’s Shayrat airbase over “the past day or two.” But that information doesn’t seem to have been immediately shared with all relevant government agencies.

In fact, Buzzfeed reported just after the statement was issued that “five US defense officials,” including one at US Central Command, the command responsible for Syria, “did not know where the potential chemical attack would come from.” It is certainly out of the ordinary for the White House to issue a statement like this without sharing it across relevant agencies and departments beforehand.

There’s been limited and fairly predictable international response to the statement thus far. British Defense Secretary Sir Michael Fallon told BBC Radio 4’s Today program this morning that “we will support” future U.S. action in response to chemical weapons use in Syria, though he said Washington had not shared its intelligence with the U.K. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, meanwhile, said that “such threats to Syria’s legitimate leaders are unacceptable.”

Without more details from the administration it’s hard to know what to make of this statement. Overall, the Trump administration’s approach to the Syrian civil war and to the Assad regime has been disjointed to say the least.

The United States carried out a cruise missile strike against Assad’s Shayrat air base on April 6 in response to an alleged sarin gas against the rebel-held town of Khan Shaykhun two days earlier. Most observers believe that Assad’s air force carried out the attack, though Assad and his Russian allies have consistently denied this. Over the weekend, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh called into question many of the details of the incident.

Prior to the Shayrat strike the Trump administration had been openly pivoting away from the Obama administration’s policy that Assad would have to step down as Syrian president as part of any negotiated settlement to that country’s now six-year-long civil war. And since the Shayrat strike, the administration has not attacked Assad’s military infrastructure again.

However, in recent weeks U.S. forces and their rebel allies have engaged in a number of skirmishes with forces allied with Assad in southern and eastern Syria. American aircraft have twice bombed Assad-supporting militias in southern Syria, on May 18 and June 6. They’ve also twice shot down Iranian-made drones in the same area, on June 8 and June 20. And on June 18, a U.S. fighter shot down a Syrian warplane near the town of Tabqah, just west of Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic State (ISIS or IS)—which is currently under assault by the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). In every case the U.S. has claimed self-defense, despite the questionable legality of its presence in Syria. In the southern Syrian incidents Washington claimed to be defending U.S.-allied rebels and their embedded American advisors at Tanf, while in the Tabqah incident the Syrian plane that was shot down was reportedly bombing SDF positions, or near enough to those positions to be considered a threat.

These incidents have raised concerns that the U.S. is heading toward some kind of confrontation with the Assad regime in southern and eastern Syria. In particular, the Trump administration, which has taken an approach toward Iran that maximizes confrontation at the expense of diplomacy, may view control of eastern Syria as key to preventing Tehran from developing a friendly land corridor through Iraq and Syria all the way to Lebanon, which is a concern for both America and Israel.

What makes Monday’s White House statement more peculiar is that the past few days have seen the U.S. again appearing to take a more relaxed position on Assad. On Friday, a spokesman for the U.S.-led anti-IS coalition said “we absolutely have no problem” with the Syrian army and its allied militias moving into eastern Syria to fight IS, despite those multiple clashes over the past month. And on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke by phone about ways to reduce the violence in Syria, for example by implementing localized ceasefire agreements. During that call, Lavrov reportedly asked Tillerson to prevent American “provocations” against Syrian forces.

In this context it would make little sense for Assad to invite another U.S. military response like the Shayrat strike. That strike resulted in some of the Trump administration’s most favorable media coverage to date. With the administration still mired in the Russia scandal and Trump’s approval rating threatening to reach new lows, it may be reasonable to ask whether it’s looking for a reason to launch another attack.

Photo: victims of the Khan Shaykhun attack

Derek Davison

Derek Davison is an analyst covering U.S. foreign policy and international affairs and the writer/editor of the newsletter Foreign Exchanges. His writing has appeared at LobeLog, Jacobin, and Foreign Policy in Focus.

SHOW 9 COMMENTS

9 Comments

  1. Does this now mean that Haley has taken the declaration of war powers on to herself?
    It seems Congress’s role in doing so has been usurped by Haley.
    I suppose Representatives and Senators are more concerned with local elections than peace.
    What does this announcement mean?
    Why, that the terrorists have already prepared their chemical weapons to use against civilians in the areas they control, as a pretext for provoking more US bombing of official Syrian forces.
    Why not? This strategy has duped America more than once already.
    Why not try it again, supplemented by emotional coverage of suffering children – yet again?
    Goebbels would be truly proud of his odious offspring among today’s terrorists in Syria.
    At least we all now know which side the US sides with – the terrorists.

  2. Thanks for the post , the respectable author of the post , cited clearly :

    ” The United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children ….”

    So , It didn’t even cross his mind with all due respect , that the reason stated there , means : deterring or punishing for mass murder of innocent civilians , is the reason for issuing such threats toward Syria . This is a serious affair !! At the time by the way , Putin himself , was stating clearly , that he would seek security council resolution , against Assad , if the latter , would attack his own people , with chemical weapon , here I quote from ” Theguardian ”

    ” At the same time he said Russia did not exclude supporting a UN resolution on punitive military strikes if it were proved that Damascus used poison gas on its own people. ” (Wednesday 4 September 2013 11.55 BST , under the title : “We have our plans’: Vladimir Putin warns US against Syria military action ) .

    That was the mistake of Trump . To declare that he seeks to restore the ” Greatness of America ” and , on the other hand , to take care , to think , that he can take care , for America only , so , that he would be able , not to intervene in such grave cases of International crimes , let alone , while his army , is involved directly there . He is the president of a Super power , not negligible state in Africa .

    Finally , What the US claimed , wasn’t in fact the self defense right ( by downing those jets described ) but rather the ” Collective self defense right ” ( UN charter , article 51 ) that means , to come to the rescue of your allies , even if not directly attacked by the third party . This is a well legal and established right in International law .

    Thanks

  3. Not only is the USA illegally in Syria and lying about the past, but now it wants to punish Syria for something it might do (according to “US intelligence, I presume) in the future.
    The POTUS and his gang, twitteringly led by the madwoman Haley, seem to have no limits to dangerous stupidity.

  4. The US and Israel used to create a false flag action anywhere where they wanted to start a war! This is new method by which they do announce a false flag before they make their illegal move! The whole world is in deep shit now!

  5. Naturally, no reference whatever to the analyses by Dr. Tom Postol demonstrating that the event couldn’t have happened as Trump wants the world to believe [http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/nerve_agent_attack_did_not_occur_in_syria_expert_finds_20170419], nor of Seymour Hersh’s recent dissection of Trump’s lies in Welt [https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165905578/Trump-s-Red-Line.html], But entirely consistent with Jonathan Cook’s analysis: ‘Hersh’s New Syria Revelations Buried From View’ [http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2017-06-26/hershs-new-syria-revelations-hidden-from-view/]. Damn, if this blog doesn’t begin to up its game, rather than relying on inside-the-beltway wannabe pundits, there’ll be no reason to keep getting it.

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