<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
President Trump warned Syria and Russia on Wednesday of an imminent U.S. military strike, promising that missiles targeting Syria \u201cwill be coming\u201d and criticizing Moscow for defending Syrian President Bashar Assad and his arsenal of chemical weapons.<\/p>\n
While Syrian and Russian forces were spotted digging in and moving equipment in preparation for an attack, Mr. Trump\u2019s national security team held an afternoon meeting at the White House chaired by Vice President Mike Pence to review military options.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump\u2019s early-morning tweet set off alarms in capitals around the world and a scramble by administration officials to ensure allies and adversaries that the U.S. government was developing a coordinated response to the crisis.<\/p>\n
SEE ALSO: Trump denies forewarning of missile strike in Syria <\/strong><\/p>\n In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin expressed hope that \u201ccommon sense would prevail,\u201d as Russia and Syria continued to deny any knowledge of a chemical attack that killed at least 40 in Douma, which was one of the last enclaves near Damascus still in the hands of anti-government rebels.<\/p>\n Hours after Mr. Trump\u2019s Twitter threat, Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon that the U.S. and its allies were \u201cstill assessing the intelligence\u201d from the weekend\u2019s attack.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re still working on this,\u201d said Mr. Mattis, who later attended the national security meeting. \u201cWe stand ready to provide military options [that are] appropriate as the president determined.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite many previous comments that he did not like to \u201ctelegraph\u201d his military intentions, Mr. Trump appeared to signal on Twitter that an attack by the U.S. and its allies was a certainty. He ridiculed Moscow\u2019s claim that it can shoot down any U.S. missiles over Syria.<\/p>\n \u201cRussia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and \u2018smart!\u2019 You shouldn\u2019t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!\u201d Mr. Trump tweeted, in a reference to Mr. Assad.<\/p>\n The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Mr. Trump\u2019s threats were reckless and endangered international peace and security.<\/p>\n Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Facebook that \u201csmart\u201d missiles would destroy any evidence of a chemical weapons attack.<\/p>\n Although the U.S. and its allies say the evidence of a chemical weapons attack is strong, any sizable strike on Syria carries major risks, given the considerable number of Russian and Iranian forces on the ground backing the Assad government and the presence of a 2,000-strong U.S. military deployment in eastern Syria still battling the Islamic State terrorist movement.<\/p>\n The president\u2019s threat of retaliatory military action prompted a slew of Russian comments warning that U.S. strikes could trigger a direct military clash between the nuclear-armed, onetime Cold War rivals.<\/p>\n A top Russian lawmaker said the Russian navy will engage its warships in the Mediterranean Sea to protect Russian assets in Syria from any U.S. strike, The Associated Press reported.<\/p>\n Alexei Kondratyev, a deputy head of the upper house\u2019s defense committee, said that in addition to ground-based air defense systems that Russia has in Syria, the Russian navy in the eastern Mediterranean will be involved in fending off any attack.<\/p>\n White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders argued that Russia bears responsibility for the atrocity last weekend because the Kremlin guaranteed in 2013 to oversee the removal of Syria\u2019s chemical weapons \u2014 a guarantee President Obama cited at the time as one reason he backed away from military action. She said in late afternoon that Mr. Trump hadn\u2019t made a final decision on an attack.<\/p>\n \u201cThe president has a number of options at his disposal,\u201d she said. \u201cThe president has not laid out a timetable.\u201d<\/p>\n Preparing for an attack<\/p>\n After Mr. Trump\u2019s tweet, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights \u2014 a British-based war monitor with a network of sources on the ground \u2014 reported that government forces were emptying main airports and military air bases in anticipation for an attack. Mr. Trump launched a cruise missile salvo at a Syrian air base shortly after taking office last year after another suspected Syrian chemical weapons attack on civilians.<\/p>\n The Russian military said Wednesday that it had observed movements of U.S. naval forces in the Gulf. Any U.S. strike would probably involve the Navy in waters within range of Syria, given the risk to aircraft from Russian and Syrian air defense systems. A U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer, the USS Donald Cook, is in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n U.S. officials have been consulting with global allies on a possible joint military response to the poison gas attack. France, which has been particularly critical of the Assad government, said it would consider a response with the U.S. and Britain. Saudi Arabia said it would support a military operation in Syria, and military analysts believe Israel was behind an airstrike on some Syrian military positions over the weekend.<\/p>\n In London, British Prime Minister Theresa May called an emergency meeting of her Cabinet to discuss Syria, and British submarines have reportedly been ordered to move within missile range of the country.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump canceled a trip to the Western Hemisphere summit in Peru this week, in part at the urging of new national security adviser John R. Bolton, to manage the crisis that is testing his vow to stand up to Mr. Assad.<\/p>\n While Syria and Russia continue to deny that a chemical attack took place Sunday in Douma, the World Health Organization said Wednesday that about 500 people had been treated for \u201csigns and symptoms consistent with exposure to toxic chemicals\u201d in the rebel enclave just before it fell.<\/p>\n Civilians in government-held areas in Syria expressed a mix of fear and defiance. Social media pages were flush with angry comments, mostly from government supporters, some lamenting Syria\u2019s perpetual conflict and others taunting Mr. Trump to go through with his threats.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have threatened us a thousand times. Let them go through with it or shut up,\u201d a participant said in an online poll asking if Syrians were afraid of a U.S. attack.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have become accustomed to such threats that aim to frighten the Syrian people,\u201d said Marwan Ghata, 66, an engineer. \u201cWe will not leave our houses, and our army is ready to retaliate.\u201d<\/p>\n As the Trump administration weighed its next move, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee urged Mr. Trump to ensure that any military attack is \u201cregime-threatening\u201d for Syria. Sen. Mike Rounds, South Dakota Republican, said the U.S. should target Mr. Assad\u2019s \u201ccommand-and-control system.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis one\u2019s got to be a very serious, a very regime-threatening attack,\u201d Mr. Rounds said on \u201cThe Hugh Hewitt Show.\u201d \u201cRemember, this guy\u2019s already been warned once. This is one that should be noticed not just by the Assad regime, but by Iran and by Russia as well, very clearly.\u201d<\/p>\n Russia and Iran are providing the Assad government with military support in Syria\u2019s 7-year-old civil war.<\/p>\n Congress weighs in<\/p>\n Some lawmakers, meanwhile, warned the administration not to take action against Syria without a congressional authorization of military force. Sen. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticized Mr. Trump\u2019s threats that he intends to conduct military strikes.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore President Trump conducts military operations, he must come to Congress for authorization,\u201d Mr. Markey said. \u201cNumerous, large-scale attacks on another country without congressional authorization are unconstitutional, and they push the United States closer to what could be an interminable, all-out conflict in Syria. And announcing military actions over Twitter is the height of irresponsibility and contradicts the president\u2019s own previous commitment never to disclose America\u2019s plans publicly.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and Middle East specialist at the American Enterprise Institute, said there are legitimate reasons for the U.S. to target Mr. Assad personally. He said killing Mr. Assad would be \u201cthe ultimate deterrent to dictators\u201d who use chemical weapons or sponsor terrorism.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is nothing absolute about the prohibition on targeting world leaders,\u201d Mr. Rubin wrote this week in The Washington Examiner.<\/p>\n But John Glaser, director of foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said Mr. Trump should \u201cback down\u201d from his threats of an attack against Syria. He said any military strike would be illegal because it hasn\u2019t been authorized by Congress.<\/p>\n \u201cNo U.S. military action short of all-out regime change is going to deter the Assad government from committing future atrocities,\u201d Mr. Glaser said. \u201cIt strains common sense to take an illegal military action with virtually no chance of success and with high risks of escalation because roughly 40 people were killed by chlorine in a civil war that has killed 500,000 people by bullets and bombs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2981 This article is based in part on wire service reports.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Trump’s early-morning tweet set off alarms in capitals around the world and a scramble by administration officials to ensure allies and adversaries that the U.S. government was developing a President Trump warned Syria and Russia on Wednesday of an imminent U.S. military strike, promising that missiles targeting Syria \u201cwill be coming\u201d and criticizing Moscow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-worlds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}