WASHINGTON- With the latest US missile strikes, President Donald Trumpappears to have reset America’s red line for military intervention in Syriaover the use of chemical weapons.
What’s unclear is where that red line now stands.
The United States said its strikes were a response to Syrian PresidentBashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons attack on April 7 that administrationofficials say employed chlorine and perhaps even sarin, a more deadly nerveagent.
“A large body of information indicates that the Syrian regime used chemicalweapons,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the UNSecurity Council on Saturday.
Sarin had previously appeared to be the threshold for intervention. A sarinattack triggered Trump’s decision last year to strike a Syrian air base. Asarin attack in 2013 was also what nearly brought then-President BarackObama to strike Syria.
Chlorine, in contrast, has been used more widely in Syria’s conflictwithout past US reprisals, and the chemical itself is far easier to findand weaponize, experts say. That makes degrading it through militarystrikes far more difficult.
“Every city in the Middle East that has a water purification systemprobably has some chlorine. It is a common industrial chemical,” said DarylKimball at the Washington-based Arms Control Association.
As of Saturday, it was unclear whether another chlorine attack would beenough to trigger more US strikes, or whether the death toll would need tobe high enough or whether – as was the case on April 7 – sarin use wouldalso need to be a possibility.
Or perhaps there would need to be a series of violations, as was the casebefore April 7, prior to any US action.
The Trump administration offered veiled threats on Saturday about futuremilitary action and mixed remarks about the degree to which it believedsarin was used by Syria’s government, which denies it used chemical weapons.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he was only certain about intelligencethat chlorine gas was used by Assad’s forces on April 7 before America’sstrikes on Syria.
He did not rule out sarin use.
Vice President Mike Pence also said Trump carried out the strikes armedwith US intelligence that at “a minimum it was the chemical weapon ofchlorine,” noting investigators still might prove sarin was used.
A different Trump administration official, briefing reporters, said theUnited States assessed that sarin was also used in the April 7 attack butsuggested that US information on sarin came from analysis of reports fromnews media and other public sources of information, as opposed to USintelligence.
It was unclear whether Trump thought sarin had been used when he said onTwitter on Wednesday that US missiles “will be coming” and accused Assad ofbeing a “Gas Killing Animal.”