FOREIGN POLICY/SYRIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Eager to show strength after a major provocation, President Donald Trump is forcefully denouncing a chemical attack he blames on Syrian President Bashar Assad but staying coy about how, if at all, the U.S. may respond.
Trump split the blame Tuesday [4-4-17] between Syria’s embattled leader and former President Barack Obama for the country’s worst chemical weapons attack in years. While calling the attack ‘reprehensible’ and intolerable, Trump reserved some of his harshest critique for his predecessor, who he said ‘did nothing’ after Assad in 2013 crossed Obama’s own ‘red line.’
‘These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the past administration’s weakness and irresolution,’ Trump said.
Yet there were no indications Trump had a plan to prevent future atrocities that was any different from Obama’s. Asked how Trump might respond, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said he wasn’t yet ready to discuss it.
‘We’ll talk about that soon,’ Spicer added.”
-Josh Lederman and Vivian Salama, “Trump has strong words after Syria attack — but what next?,” The Associated Press online, April 5, 2017