French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday he “convinced” President Trump to stay in Syria before the United States, United Kingdom and France launched strikes against targets at three sites Friday night, CNN reports.
Said Macron: “Ten days ago, President Trump said the USA’s will is to disengage from Syria. We convinced him that it was necessary to stay.”
“Defense Department officials said on Saturday that American-led strikes against Syria had taken out the ‘heart’ of President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons program, but acknowledged that the Syrian government most likely retained some ability to again attack its own people with chemical agents,” the New York Times reports.
“Warplanes and ships from the United States, Britain and France launched more than 100 missiles at three chemical weapons storage and research facilities near Damascus and Homs, the officials told reporters, in an operation that President Trump and Pentagon leaders hailed as a success.”
President Trump tweeted: “Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!”
President Trump appeared to taunt Russian president Vladimir Putin on Twitter:
Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!
Bassam Rifai of the Syrian American Council was a guest on Fox News when he turned to the camera and said, “President Trump, I’m speaking to you directly. What we need to do right now is to take out Assad’s air force.”
President Trump said that his administration would be making decisions about its response to a chemical attack in Syria within the next 24 to 48 hours, decrying the action as “atrocious” and “horrible,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump: “This is about humanity, and it can’t be allowed to happen.”
New York Times: “The challenge for Mr. Trump’s Middle East policy came on a day when he was already facing a transition in his foreign policy team as his new national security adviser, John Bolton, arrived for his first day on the job and the president was scheduled to host the nation’s senior military leaders for dinner at the White House.”
President Trump “promised a ‘big price’ to be paid for what he said was a chemical weapons attack that choked dozens of Syrians to death the day before, and a top White House official said the administration would not rule out a missile strike to retaliate against the government of President Bashar al-Assad,” the New York Times reports.
“In a tweet, Mr. Trump laid the blame for the attack partly on President Vladimir Putin of Russia, the first time since his election that he has criticized the Russian leader by name on Twitter.”
President Trump “grew irritated with his top military brass and national security team on Tuesday when they advised him an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Syria would be unwise and could not provide a timeline for when American forces could exit,” CNN reports.
“In a sometimes-tense meeting of his national security team, Trump complained at length about the amount of American money being spent in the region, which he said had produced nothing for the US in return.”
“President Trump has instructed military leaders to prepare to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, but has not set a date for them to do so,” the Washington Post reports.
“In a meeting with top national security officials Tuesday, Trump stressed that U.S. troops can be involved in current training tasks for local forces to ensure security in areas liberated from the Islamic State. But the president said that the U.S. mission would not extend beyond the destruction of the Islamic State.”
President Trump said the United States would leave Syria “very soon” and “let the other people take care of it,” the Washington Examiner reports.
He added: “We’re going to be coming out of there real soon, going back to our country where we belong, where we want to be.”
Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch indicted last week by special counsel Robert Mueller, is believed “to control the Russian mercenaries who attacked U.S. troops and their allies in Syria this month” and “was in close touch with Kremlin and Syrian officials in the days and weeks before and after the assault,” the Washington Post reports.
Eli Lake: “If you’ve been listening just to the Kremlin and the Pentagon, you probably didn’t know that Russia attacked American forces and their allies in Syria last week, suffering heavy casualties.”
“U.S. forces killed scores of Russian contract soldiers in Syria last week in what may be the deadliest clash between citizens of the former foes since the Cold War,” Bloomberg reports.
New York Times: “Syria announced during United Nations climate talks on Tuesday that it would sign the Paris agreement on climate change. The move, which comes on the heels of Nicaragua signing the accord last month, will leave the United States as the only country that has rejected the global pact.”
“President Trump has decided to end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-Assad, a move long sought by Russia,” the Washington Post reports.
“Officials said the phasing out of the secret program reflects Trump’s interest in finding ways to work with Russia, which saw the anti-Assad program as an assault on its interests. The shuttering of the program is also an acknowledgment of Washington’s limited leverage and desire to remove Assad from power.”
“Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres during a private State Department meeting last week that the fate of Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad now lies in the hands of Russia, and that the Trump administration’s priority is limited to defeating the Islamic State,” Foreign Policy reports.
“The remarks offer the latest stop on a bumpy U.S. policy ride that has left international observers with a case of diplomatic whiplash as they try to figure out whether the Trump administration will insist that Assad step down from power. Nearly three months ago, Tillerson had insisted that Assad would have to leave office because of his alleged use of chemical weapons.”
The White House said that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria appeared to be preparing another chemical weapons attack, and warned that he would “pay a heavy price” if one took place, the New York Times reports.
“Several military officials who were reached late Monday said they had been caught off guard by the White House statement, but it was unclear how closely held the intelligence regarding a potential chemical attack was.”
Buzzfeed News: “Five defense officials… said they not only did not know where the potential chemical attack would come from, but they were unaware the White House was planning to release the statement.”
“The Trump administration accused the Syrian government of operating a crematorium to cover up what U.S. officials called ‘mass murders’ at the notorious Saydnaya prison outside Damascus,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The U.S. estimates the Syrian government is hanging as many as 50 detainees per day at the prison and burning some of the remains afterwards… The U.S. released several declassified satellite photos it says reveal the existence of the crematorium near the main prison.”
Speaking at a conference, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross “recalled the scene at Mar-a-Lago on April 6, when the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping was interrupted by the strike on Syria,” Variety reports.
Said Ross: “Just as dessert was being served, the president explained to Mr. Xi he had something he wanted to tell him, which was the launching of 59 missiles into Syria. It was in lieu of after-dinner entertainment.”
As the crowd laughed, Ross added: “The thing was, it didn’t cost the president anything to have that entertainment.”
“Vilified by accusations of using a chemical bomb, Syria’s president intensified his counterpropaganda campaign on Thursday, suggesting that child actors had staged death scenes to malign him and that American warplanes had bombed a terrorist warehouse full of poison gases, killing hundreds of people,” the New York Times reports.
Said Assad: “We don’t know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhoun. Were they dead at all?”
“An airstrike by the American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State killed 18 Syrian fighters allied with the United States,” the New York Times reports.
“The strike, on Tuesday in Tabqah, Syria, was the third time in a month that American-led airstrikes may have killed civilians or allies, and it comes even as the Pentagon is investigating two previous airstrikes that killed or wounded scores of civilians in a mosque complex in Syria and in a building in the west of Mosul, Iraq.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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