Trump also invoked Iran in his series of tweets, further challenging Tehran while signaling he may scuttle its nuclear deal with the West. The president has often laid some blame on his predecessor, Barack Obama, for Assad’s continued grip on power after years of civil war.
Obama said in 2012 that Syria’s use of chemical weapons would be a “red line” that would change his decision-making on intervening in the war and have “enormous consequences.” After such an attack in 2013 killed hundreds outside Damascus, American ships in the Mediterranean were poised to launch missiles. But Obama pulled back after key U.S. ally Britain, as well as Congress, balked.
He opted for a Russian-backed proposal that was supposed to remove and eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles.
“If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!” Trump tweeted from the White House.
Questions about the administration’s possible response reverberated throughout Washington in the hours after the attack.
