The Daily - Monday, Apr. 9, 2018

Episode Date: April 9, 2018

President Trump has warned that there will be a “big price to pay” after yet another suspected chemical weapons attack on Syrians. But the suspicion that the Assad regime continues to use those weapons suggests it views the United States as being focused on a different fight. Guest: Ben Hubbard, who covers the Middle East for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, President Trump is threatening that there will be a big price to pay after yet another chemical weapons attack on the people of Syria. But the fact that Syria continues to use those weapons suggests it understands that the U.S. is focused on a different fight inside Syria. It's Monday, April 9th. Tell me about this town in Syria, Douma. Douma's one of these towns that, you know, before the uprising began, there was nothing really all that significant about it. Ben Hubbard covers the Middle East for The Times.

These are sort of mid-sized towns that's basically a satellite town to a major city. You have them all over Syria. And these tend to be sort of lower middle class towns that are primarily populated by people who immigrated from the countryside. So you'll have a lot of people who are still involved in commerce and agriculture. It was not a wealthy town. It's not a town that really, you know, people who weren't from there would have a whole lot of reason to visit. Then in 2011, the uprisings that we've come to know as the Arab Spring come along, and you know, then they arrive in Syria. And the center of the uprisings that happened in Syria were towns like Douma, where there wasn't a lot of money,

where they were sometimes exploited by the government. And these are the places where we really saw mobilization during the uprisings, first in terms of protests, calling for political change, calling for political openness, and then... What do you think should happen to Bashar al-Assad? We want to kill Bashar al-Assad. He has to be killed.

He has to be killed. You want him killed? You want him dead? Of course. He killed our people. He killed our families. He has to be killed. As the government increasingly responded with violence, you also saw the formation of

rebel movements. Basically, by late 2012, the whole town and most of the towns around it were run by rebels. They had, for the most part, kicked the government out. They were, to a certain extent, running their own affairs and trying to find other ways to advance on the capital. Some of them were shelling Damascus and sometimes killing people there. But basically, since, you know, late 2012, these areas were entirely run by the opposition, completely out of government hands. And how does Assad respond to these situations where towns like Douma are being successfully run by rebels?

Well, it was really just a question of how he could get together the military force needed to take them back. So it's been very gradual. You know, he sort of worked his way up the spine of the country, first took out, you know, rebel enclaves in the city of Homs. The rebels were leaving their last enclave in Homs, a city once at the heart of the uprising. Then he continued to the city of Aleppo.

Now, the Syrian army has announced that Aleppo is now completely back under its control. The last rebel fighters were evacuated from the city on Thursday, handing President Bashar al-Assad his biggest victory of the war. And so what we've seen this year is really sort of coming back to the center of the country and wanting to clean out these rebel bastions close to the center, close to the actual capital that had been a headache for the government for a long time. Reminders are everywhere that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is in control of the center of Damascus. One of its biggest victories may be closer than ever, controlling not just the center of the city, but the outskirts too.

You know, over the last few months, they've been sort of whittling these enclaves away, town by town, conquering the rebels there, And Douma was basically the only one left. It was a rebel group called Jaisal Islam or the Army of Islam. They had been formed in the eastern suburbs of Damascus. They'd been there since the beginning. They were one of the first big, real, large, organized rebel groups. And come this year, they're the last people standing. Some of the other groups had got out on buses and gone to other parts of the country. These guys are still there. There's negotiations going on with the government. Are we going to leave? Are we going to stay? What are we going to do? And then, bam, there's a chemical attack. So we got a sense at the end of last week that this was coming.

Not that the chemical weapons were coming, but that there was a big invasion of Duma going on. The government and the government media started pounding the war drums. We're going to finally get rid of these people. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. And it really heats up on Friday. On Saturday, we start seeing these videos outside of the town, huge columns of smoke rising over the town. And, you know, it's quite clear that the government has brought together all of its military assets and they really want to hit the place hard. And then really late Saturday night, we get the first glimpses that this is more than just a normal military operation. We start getting videos

distributed that show, you that show people going into homes and finding all of these people sprawled out on the ground, some of them with white foam coming out of their nostrils and their mouths. I know it's so hard to look at. These are the men, women, children of Douma, lying on the floor. This is an underground shelter here.

What you see around their mouth appears to be foam. That's a sign of a chemical attack. It's all still a bit murky. I mean, part of the problem is you have, you know, a town that's completely surrounded by the Syrian government. You have very, very few internet connections. You have very few people who can get on the phone and tell you what happened. But to the best that we can figure out at this point,

you know, we think that there are more than 40 people who got killed and there could be other people that just they haven't been able to discover yet because the battle is still ongoing and they can't really go out and search for all of the bodies. In the meantime, the Syrian media, the Russian media, they all spring into action and say there's absolutely no truth to any of this. We would never do this. They start blaming the rebels inside of Douma and saying, oh, this is all fabrication. This is basically a theater piece to make it look like we did this. We have no need to do this because we can take over the place with our normal military power. We don't need to resort to chemical weapons.

The thing is, we've seen this movie before. We've seen that they've done it in times where they really just kind of needed a knockout blow to be able to take over a certain community or to knock out a certain rebel group. So we've seen it before. And sure enough, negotiations that had been ongoing between the Syrian government and the army of Islam, today they were announced that they reached an agreement. And so now this last standing rebel group in Douma is either going to get on the buses and go elsewhere in the country to other areas controlled by rebels, or they're going to make their peace with the government and stay. So whatever the government did, it worked.

In other words, after years of pressure on this town of Douma and the rebels there successfully holding out against the Assad government, just hours after what very much looks like a chemical weapons attack on the people of Douma, it looks like the government has finally defeated them. Yes. So then the question now becomes, now that we believe there was a chemical attack, what is the U.S. government going to do about it? Ben, how has the U.S. government responded in the past to these kinds of chemical weapons attacks by the Assad government against its own people? We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people. In 2012, President Obama really laid down what was expected to be the law on these sorts of things. And he literally said that the use of chemical weapons

in Syria would be, quote, a red line. A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change his calculus about whether or not to intervene. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.

And everybody remembered this, and it was very much understood that this was the way it was going to be until 2013, when we have an incredibly large series of chemical attacks right outside of Damascus. We had a number of attacks on both sides of the city. Both the east and the west sides were hit, including some areas quite close to Douma.

Hundreds and hundreds of people killed. This is, you know, people probably remember that when all these terrible photos came out of these lines and lines of bodies wrapped in white cloth. So we have this massive chemical attack. And, you know, investigators finally get in and they confirm that it was a chemical weapons attack. And Obama, everybody sort of believes,

okay, you've got this red line. It just got violated. You've got to respond. In a world with many dangers, this menace must be confronted. After careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action

against Syrian regime targets. Then we have the famous, what's become known as the punt to Congress, where Obama says... But, having made my decision as commander-in-chief, based on what I am convinced is our national security interests, I'm also mindful that I'm the president of the world's oldest constitutional democracy. We're a democracy. I'm not going to decide this by myself. We're going to go to Congress. That's why I've made a second decision. I will seek authorization for the use of force from the American people's representatives in Congress. Congress votes it

down. And then the Russians come up with a very interesting idea. They propose, well, why don't we just have a deal between the Americans and the Russians to get rid of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles? So the Obama administration signs up for this. They bring in inspectors who go around to all the facilities, and they get rid of all the stockpiles. And we're all led to believe that this is the end of the story. Okay, well, we didn't enforce the red line, but it's a great thing because we got rid of all of Syria's chemical weapons. Okay, so in 2013, Obama gets this agreement, along with Russia, from Assad, that Syria is going to give up its chemical weapons program. Then what happens? Well,

the next thing that happens is that the battlefield in Syria gets substantially more complicated because you have an entire another factor come out of nowhere and basically take everybody by surprise. And this is the rise of the Islamic State. As a top coalition official warns, ISIS fighters are moving with, quote, impunity throughout Western Syria. In fact, they are noticing that some ISIS militants are moving west in Syria, and that means they're moving into areas controlled by Bashar al-Assad. That means they may be taking shelter in those areas because Assad really still cannot control his own territory. These jihadists that the United States thought they had defeated in Iraq years ago suddenly come and they take over part of Iraq and then they storm back over the border and take over parts of Syria.

and take over parts of Syria. So this leads to a massive retooling of the entire way that the United States sees the conflict in Syria, gradually moving away from any kind of interest or involvement in the original civil war between the rebels and the government of Bashar al-Assad, and a very, very strong focus on how do we get rid of the Islamic State and how do we get rid of these terrorists that are beheading journalists and trying to dispatch bombers overseas to do nasty things.

Which is, of course, something that everybody agrees on, but it makes it increasingly difficult when the Syrian government launches another chemical attack. And when is that? The next big one comes along in April 2017 when we have a gas attack on a town called Khan Sheikhoun in northwestern Syria that kills dozens and dozens of people. Patients have got clear signs of organophosphate attack. This patient behind me has got pinpoint people. So have the other patients we've received from the gas attack today in Khan Sheikhoun, which is in northern Hama. And in the intervening years, of course, Donald Trump has become the U.S. president.

Yes. And how does he respond to what clearly looks like a violation of the agreement that President Obama has reached with Syria to give up its chemical weapons? So Trump chooses to respond very differently than Obama had. He talks later about being very moved by the pictures that he saw of these children who had been killed in this chemical weapons attack. And even beautiful little babies, their deaths was an affront to humanity. These heinous actions by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated. And so he orders strikes. He orders a military intervention. He orders 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles to be fired at the air base in Syria,

where the attack originated from. Part of this is him just wanting to punish Assad, wanting to lay down the red line that Obama never did and say, you can't use these kinds of weapons. We're going to draw the line. There's also another domestic political calculation going on is that he wants to out Obama, Obama. He wants to show he's a new president. He wants to show, you know, you're the guy who put down the red line and didn't enforce it. I'm going to be the enforcer. It crossed a lot of lines for me.

When you kill innocent children, innocent babies, babies, little babies, with a chemical gas that is so lethal, people were shocked to hear what gas it was. That crosses many, many lines beyond the red line, many, many lines. The interesting thing about the Tomahawk missile strikes on the airbase is that they disappeared very quickly. Trump called for them. They happened. They did not cause extensive damage. And then Trump promptly stopped talking about them and stopped talking about that entire part of the war. And so it was quite clear that while Trump did want to get credit for being tougher than Obama and by enforcing this red line against chemical weapons,

he was not interested in getting involved in a protracted battle with the Syrian government or in trying to do regime change or any of that. He wanted to enforce the red line. And then he wanted to go back to ignoring that half of the war so that he could continue to focus on the effort to defeat ISIS. And did the Syrian government, the government of Bashar al-Assad, did it understand that about President Trump? Did it, in a sense, leave the Syrian government feeling like they could keep doing what they were doing, which is using chemical weapons. Well, it's hard to get inside their heads, but I think we can see from their actions that, yeah, they did. I mean, basically, they got away with it. I'm sure that there was a lot

of terror in Damascus right when this happened. But I think they kind of realized, you know what, we weathered this, and we can go back to doing this, and there's not really going to be a huge price to pay. And I think if they felt that there was a really huge price to pay, then they wouldn't have done this attack that happened on Saturday. So with that in mind, this lesson that the Syrian government has seemed to absorb from the last chemical weapons attack and how the U.S. responded, absorb from the last chemical weapons attack and how the U.S. responded. How has President Trump responded to Saturday's attack on Douma? The rhetoric so far has been very similar to what we saw after the attack last year. I mean, he came out, he said that he was horrified by the

pictures of the women and children. He called it a mindless chemical attack in Syria. He actually called out President Putin of Russia and said, you know, there's going to be a big price to pay. So now everybody's waiting to see, OK, well, what exactly is the big price going to be? And Ben, if history is any guide, what would you anticipate that the big price might look like? I think what we're likely to see is some kind of a response that, again, makes the point that you're not supposed to do this kind of thing. But I would be very surprised if we see a general overhaul of American engagement towards Syria. Trump made it very clear last week that he would like to get out. He would like to pull American troops out and be done with the whole place.

I want to get out. I want to bring our troops back home. I want to start rebuilding our nation. our nation. We will have, as of three months ago, $7 trillion in the Middle East over the last 17 years. We get nothing, nothing out of it. Nothing. So I think this is probably something that came along and fouled up his plans for that. But I would be very surprised if we see a substantial overhaul of, you know, the American stance towards the Assad governments and towards the prospect of Bashar al-Assad staying in power. So finally, how is it actually going in Syria in defeating ISIS, if that's the U.S. objective? That part of the war has been quite successful. We've come up with a very strong alliance with, you know, Kurdish led militias in the northeast of the country. And we fought on the ground with them, supported them with airstrikes. And ISIS has lost almost all of its territory. I mean, we pushed it out of all the big cities. It has a few sort of desert pockets left near the border with Iraq. But no, that part has been, you know, it's been very successful. And so the other big question is, well, then how

long do we stay? I mean, in a way, in terms of that war, we're very much where the U.S. was in 2010 in Iraq, where, okay, it looks like we kind of defeated the jihadists, but what do we do with this country that can't really stand on its own feet or with these communities that have been torn apart by war? If we leave, does that just allow the jihadists to come back? Or should we stay and try to do, quote unquote, nation building, which, you know, is a concept that's kind of fallen out of favor in Washington these days. But maybe that's what we need to do to make sure that these guys don't come back and take over these communities again. So this is really the decision that they faced on that part of the war. But that's completely separate from the entire Assad scenario.

Ben, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. As far as Syria is concerned, our primary mission in terms of that was getting rid of ISIS. We've almost completed that task and we'll be making a decision very quickly in coordination with others in the area as to what we'll do. In the days leading up to this weekend's attack on Douma, President Trump and the Pentagon both addressed the future of U.S. troops in Syria, at times delivering contradictory messages. So I want to get back. I want to rebuild our nation. Think of it, $7 trillion over a 17-year period. We have nothing, nothing except death and destruction.

It's a horrible thing. So it's time. It's time. We were very successful against ISIS. We'll be successful against anybody militarily. But sometimes it's time to come back home. And we're thinking about that very seriously. Thank you. In a news conference on Tuesday, President Trump said he wanted to bring U.S. troops home, while at almost the exact same time, a top general said they would stay. By Wednesday, the White House had released a statement

saying that the American military was going nowhere until ISIS was eradicated in Syria. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg begins two days of testimony before Congress, where he is expected to apologize for Facebook's missteps, reassure lawmakers that he intends to stop foreign powers from using the platform to meddle in U.S. elections, and explain the company's plans to better protect users' privacy. The Times reports that in preparation for the testimony, Facebook has hired a team of experts,

In preparation for the testimony, Facebook has hired a team of experts, including a former aide to President George W. Bush, to coach Zuckerberg in projecting humility and charm. Here to comment is Mark Zuckerberg. Over the weekend, Saturday Night Live played with Zuckerberg's reputation for being uncomfortable speaking in public. Hi there, Colin. Begin eye contact. Two, three, and away. Nailed it. Wow. That was great, Mark. Thanks for being here.

You know, a lot of people now are calling on you to resign from Facebook. Are you going to step down? No way, homie. Because according to our data sets, I don't have to, and you can't make me. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.