New York, NY. It now appears that Friday’s unprovoked attack on Syria, reminiscent of the Japanese sneak attack upon Pearl Harbor, was one conceived of by none other than Hillary Clinton, Trump’s former opponent in election 2016.
Clinton is in New York at the Women in the World conference in Manhattan, where she responded to a deadly chemical attack in Syria earlier this week that intelligence agencies have blamed on the country’s President Bashar Assad, but others say is an assesment based on wishes and not evidence actually proving Assad’s guilt.
“Assad has an air force, and that air force is the cause of most of these civilian deaths,” Clinton said. “And I really believe that we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them.” Experts were quick to point out that Sarin is delivered by artillery rounds, not by aircraft bombs.
In the first direct American act of war against the Assad regime, Trump ordered the launch of 59 Tomahawk missiles Thursday targeting the Shayrat airfield in Homs, western Syria. The decision was made in response to the chemical attack that killed at least 80 people, many of whom were children. Despite the fact Syrian aircraft did not drop sarin delivery devices.
Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner, is belived to have sought the advice from Clinton, who served as Secretary of State under former President Barack Obama and has long spoken in support of increased intervention against the Assad regime. Trump has often demonstrated a less coherent strategy, first opposing intervention, and later criticizing Obama for failing to enforce what he called the “red line” crossed by the use of chemical agents. Indicating Clinton was involved in the decision making process.
All the more strange in overnight developments was just hours before the chemical attack on Tuesday, Trump’s Ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, told reporters that the U.S. did not support regime change in Syria, a position that has shifted in the wake of this week’s fatal events. American political experts point to the removal of Steve Bannon as key to understanding the change in US foreign policy.
With Bannon gone from the National Security Council and it totally controlled by Neocon elements like General McMasters, further acts of war by the United States appear to be the direction America is now headed. Clinton’s role in future Trump decisions is unclear at this time.