“It could be that Russia is knowingly allowing chemical weapons to remain in Syria. It could be that Russia has been incompetent in its efforts to remove the chemical weapons,” Haley said, echoing similar comments made by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Thursday. “Or it could be that the Assad regime is playing the Russians for fools. Telling them that there are no chemical weapons, all the while stockpiling them on their bases.”
It seems to me that these are the kinds of questions Trump’s State Department should have been asking, and getting answers for, before a strike than after. If these are important questions, if they had actually asked them, why couldn’t they have waited for an answer, and would they have still bombed if these question had been answered?
Obviously, while they are asking these question, which may determine the appropriate US response, more people may have been gassed, but it might also mean there would have been a possibility that Russia would take action against Assad after realizing they have been fooled or Russia’s personnel are incompetent.
Of course if Assad’s story is correct, i.e. the sarin gas was produced by the insurgents and released when Assad bombed, there most likely would have been no more people dying from a sarin gas leak, unless there were many manufacturing areas that had remained hidden from the Russians and everyone else.
But asking these question and receiving answers to them is now pretty much a waste of time. The world now knows that the US will be willing to commit thousands of troops and trillions of dollars, without any answers to these, or perhaps any, questions.
But thanks U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley. Your questions may be a dollar short (59 million) and a day late, but they should count for something, as Trump, although not very presidential, has shown he is a man of action, which is something.
Source: At U.N., Haley says U.S. is ‘prepared to do more’ in Syria
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