It was recently alleged that the Syrian government carried out yet another chemical attack on its own civilians. The apparent attack took place in the rebel-held town of Douma and has left dozens upon dozens dead and many more affected by the chemicals; the attack came in the midst of a bombardment of the city that the Syrian government claimed was in retaliation for rebel shelling of Damascus.
To address the issue that this alleged chemical attack poses to the world, we’ve got Donald Trump, who before being president was a private businessman with often questionable ethics. He has not somehow acquired a significant experience with foreign policy issues in the time that he’s been in office; rather, it’s the same guy coming at these issues who occupied himself in the past with getting his name up in big gold letters on buildings.
Seemingly bent on taking the flashy road, which is in line with his history as a real estate mogul and reality television star, the president indicated on Monday that he was considering the possibility of a military strike on a Syrian government position in response to the alleged chemical attack.
He took a similar step just last year after a similar incident, and his Monday comments come the day after it was falsely rumored that we had gone ahead and carried out such a strike. (The interest behind that strike turned out to be Israel.)
He told reporters:
‘I’d like to begin by condemning the heinous attack on innocent Syrians with banned chemical weapons. It was an atrocious attack; it was horrible. You don’t see things like that, as bad as the news is around the world, you just don’t see those images. We are studying that situation extremely closely. We are meeting with our military and everybody else and we’ll be making some major decisions over the next 24-48 hours. We are very concerned when a thing like that can happen — and this is about humanity. We’re talking about humanity and it can’t be allowed to happen.’
.@POTUS Trump condemns the heinous attack on innocent Syrians with banned chemical weapons. #Syria pic.twitter.com/qiEahlL3Ah
— Department of State (@StateDept) April 9, 2018
The president went on to reference, as he has on Twitter recently, that the Syrian Army has apparently surrounded the affected area and is not allowing outside observers in to examine the situation firsthand.
While speaking to reporters, his brand new national security adviser, John Bolton, was sitting behind him. Bolton is the president’s third national security adviser in just over a year, and he’s long shown an inclination for supporting military action, so he’s not exactly the guy you want to have around in situations like this one. Rather than exploring restraint as an option, he’s liable to jump straight to pushing for military action.
Also during his remarks to reporters on Monday, the president suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has long supported the Syrian government, could bear some responsibility for the gas attack, which is also something he’s said on Twitter recently.
What steps the president will be willing to take to back up his rare condemnation of Vladimir Putin remain to be seen.
Check out Twitter’s response to the president below; he retweeted the video of himself talking to reporters.
He doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing.
A year after the US attacked Syria, what’s changed? – CNN https://t.co/MA9Ii0xVxB
— Forever Logical ???? (@ForeverLogical) April 9, 2018
Featured Image via Jim Lo Scalzo-Pool/ Getty Images
