Today, Explained - Why did the U.S. just bomb Syria?

Episode Date: April 16, 2018

President Trump and United States allies bombed chemical weapons facilities in Syria on Friday. The attacks came in response to President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons on his own people. Vox’s Alex Ward explains why the United States escalated its involvement and why the world sees chemical weapons differently from conventional ones. *********************** For an explainer on how Syria got here, check out our previous episode "It's never too late to understand the war in Syria": https://art19.com/shows/today-explained/episodes/d2c4b553-b2e5-4549-85e3-2de05a45064e Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. Today Explained is supported by Mattress Firm, their America's neighborhood mattress store, and you can find out about their latest deals at mattressfirm.com. You can also save 10% on your new mattress with the code PODCAST10. The code is only valid through May 2nd, so you'll want to use it before then and not after. Again, mattressfirm.com. Just over a week ago, we explained the very complicated war in Syria on this show. And just one day after that, the war got even more complicated. The Syrian president used chemical weapons on his people again.

President Trump said that was unacceptable again. And the United States has now bombed Syrian facilities again. The bombing was one week in the making. Let's start with April 7th. There was an attack on a town called Douma. The Syrian American Medical Society said a chlorine bomb had hit a hospital near the capital Damascus. Damascus being the capital of Syria. Alex Ward writes about defense at Vox. We now know, based on inspectors on the ground, that about a week ago there was chlorine gas and sarin gas used that eventually killed about 40 men, women, and children in the town on April 8th.

So the next day, President Trump called it a chemical attack on Twitter. President Trump now issuing a series of threatening tweets saying, President Putin, Russia, and Iran are responsible for backing animal Assad. Big price to pay. There were photos of children, you know, foaming at the mouth, nostrils, men and women as well. He saw these photos and just assumed it was a chemical attack. Okay. So let's go to Monday, April 9th.

Yeah. A bunch of countries, a bunch of leaders had condemned Assad's attack and had said that some response was required. There were very few countries, though, that were willing to commit to actually some sort of military force. The most likely countries to join in were France and UK based on their statements. If we go to April 10th, then we see Macron openly weighing action in Syria

and so that allies would decide what to do in the coming days. Today we cannot allow a regime who thinks they can do whatever they want, even at worst defy international law, to act. And then he said that they would only attack the regime's chemical capabilities. And then the UK government said that it would also support actions. So it's around April 10th now that we're starting to see there's a plan forming.

The US, UK and France will attack chemical capabilities of the Assad regime. We don't know when, we don't know how, but something's coming. One of the Trump administration's sort of big things has been, we do not telegraph military strikes or any military moves. The president bashed Obama multiple times for, you know, saying we're going to withdraw troops from Iraq around this time. Yeah. And their whole argument was doing that gives the enemy an unnecessary advantage. And so now we come to April 11th. I'll read the whole tweet because it's quite important. Sure.

Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready, Russia, because they will be coming nice, new, and smart. You shouldn't be partners with a gas-killing animal who kills his people and enjoys it. And smart was in quotation marks. Smart was in quotation marks. So that indicated to us that these were going to be smart missiles. Smart bombs are precision-guided. They are GPS-guided.

They're supposed to be precise. So even after they're shot, a GPS guides them to their specific target. OK. We just talked a second ago about how Trump excoriated Obama for telegraphing military maneuvers. Here he is, one, saying a maneuver is coming. Two, tipping his hand as to what kind of weapon might be used. And then three, threatening a nuclear-armed country on Twitter. This is Trump saying not only is it Assad's fault,

but it's also you, Russia, and also Iran's fault for backing him. Come April 12th on Thursday, Macron, the president of France, says... We have proof that last week, now nearly 10 days ago, that chemical weapons were used, at least chlorine, and that they were used by Bashar al-Assad's regime. So now we've come to Friday morning. There are tons of reports that there's an internal rift within the White House. You've got the president and John Bolton, the new national security advisor, advocating for a pretty broad military move. Trump and Bolton want to do something big.

Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, and General Joe Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were advocating for something a bit more measured. Their big worry was starting a broader war. You could imagine if the U.S. shot at Syria and killed Russians,

Russia would be quite angry and might retaliate against the 2,000 troops we have in Syria or do something else. So Mattis and Dunford were advocating for something punitive against Syria, but maybe be careful not to piss off Russia. So Mattis and Dunford were advocating for something punitive against Syria, but maybe be

careful not to piss off Russia. So now we come to the moment. It's Friday, April 13th. It's 9 p.m. on the East Coast. It's 4 a.m. in Syria. And the attack happens. Good evening. As we come on the air live in the Pacific time zone, there is breaking news. President Trump announcing a short time ago that he has ordered U.S. airstrikes on targets in Syria. And those strikes carried out with allies Britain and France are now underway. It takes place over only two minutes and it hits three targets. By 10 p.m. I'm at the Pentagon on Friday night having a briefing with Madison Dunford. This is a one-time shot, and I believe that it sent a very strong message to dissuade him, to deter him from doing this again. That's how quickly this thing went.

It was over. It was over. So how does this work? Was the United States executing the strike with some sort of military support from Britain and France? What is this coalition? How does it work? So the U.S. did the vast majority of the strikes. with some sort of military support from Britain and France? What is this coalition? How does it work?

So the U.S. did the vast majority of the strikes. If my math is right, it was 88 of the 105 missiles shot. But France and Britain did help in shooting some of the targets. We can go over the three targets now if you'd like. Yeah. So target one is the Barzah Research and Development Center. Now that is where the Assad regime developed, produced, and tested chemical weapons for years.

It's right outside of Damascus. Target 2 was the Himshinzar chemical weapons storage facility. It's about 15 miles west of Oms, and Oms is about 100 miles north of Damascus. Okay. It's a separate location. And this, of course, stores chemical weapons, allegedly, for the Assad regime. 22 weapons were shot at this target, all by coalition forces. Target 3 is the Himshinzar chemical weapons bunker.

It's very close by. It's almost in the same area. And it was hit with seven scout missiles. That's what we were told by the Pentagon, that all the targets were hit, every missile made it, and all these targets were destroyed. If you look at the photos and the satellite images that have been shared with us, it looks like that's correct. Syrian commanders this morning have been examining the damage from last night's attacks. Limited airstrikes that the U.S.-led coalition is now calling a success,

but airstrikes that Russia says were acts of aggression. If you ask the Syrians and the Russians, they shot down the majority of the missiles. The U.S. denies that completely and says that every single missile that they shot made it. And on top of that, that all the planes and troops made it home safely. Did Russia and Syria know that these attacks were coming because the president was so clearly telegraphing what he was going to do on Twitter? Did they literally know to expect this at a certain time on Friday night or Saturday morning for them? They didn't know when the attack was coming, but they did take some precautions.

Syria moved a lot of its most important military equipment next to Russian equipment because they knew the U.S. would be worried about striking Russia. Trump telegraphed that something was coming. They didn't know when, though. According to Dunford, the U.S. and Russia talk continuously on a deconfliction line in Syria. They're both operating in the country. And so they always try to deconflict by letting each other know we're going to be flying here. So don't think you're under attack. So apparently the U.S. spoke with Russia, hey, we're going to be in this airspace. But at no point, as far as we know, did the U.S. tell Russia,

we're attacking now and we're hitting these targets, get out of the way. We just passed the seven-year anniversary of this conflict. Why drop chemical weapons on rebels, on civilians at this point in the conflict? What does it get him? He knows that this is the kind of thing that draws ire from the international community. So one of the ironies of this is that Assad has effectively won the Syrian civil war, and he's still doing this. And the reason for doing that is he's winning the war, but his manpower is quite depleted after years of fighting. They're all around the country. And one of the areas that they're really going after now and just basically captured is an area called Eastern Ghouta. It's a suburb east of Damascus. It's been rebel held for years. And it's been a stain in Assad's mind on him because it is an, I know if I don't control

the whole capital region, how am I really in charge of this country? He's been going after the rebels. And one expert told me in a siege, starve, and surrender campaign. Chemical weapons are part of this siege. The Syrian regime prefers regular conventional barrel bombs, as horrific as they are, conventional weaponry and ground troops. When they are backed into a corner because the rebels can pin them back, the rebels are decently good fighters. As a last resort, they will use chemical weapons because they want to win. And just sort of psychologically, if you have a civilian population and rebels are defending you, you say, hey, you know, maybe can you start giving up now because I don't want to see chemical attacks happen on people who I know again. So that's kind of why the Assad regime,

even though it's winning, is using chemical weapons at this point. Why do you think the Trump administration thought military force was a good idea in this case? There are a couple of reasons why, you know, military force kind of makes sense and sort of the logic of what's happening. One is the diplomatic route has failed, right? We've been trying to come to some sort of political solution to the Syrian civil war through what's called the Geneva process. That has just failed. Russia's blocked at every turn, Syria's not interested. And remember, this last week, the week leading up to the attack, there were four UN Security Council meetings where the US tried to get some sort of agreement to stop on using chemical weapons.

Russia blocked at every turn. They denied that an attack happened. So that diplomatic option didn't work either. If you're the Trump administration, your argument is we've tried diplomacy. Obama couldn't get a diplomatic solution. We've been trying to. We're not seeing it. We're not seeing it either in the U.N.

So what's left? The logic is, because Trump said on Friday that, you know, this will be sort of a sustained response. So there was sort of the warning shot last year, a bigger response this time hitting the heart of the chemical weapons program, and now they're saying it's up to Assad on what to do. And if he uses chemical weapons again, then there may be an even bigger response. And that's sort of the risk of this. You can call it a success now, but what if Assad uses chemical weapons in a big way again? Maybe there's more to hit, but you can imagine that the targets that are left, they're not destroyed, are probably riskier targets. It can cause a broader conflict. So we've kind of, I wouldn't say we've boxed ourselves in because I don't know kind of what the broader targets could be.

But if you're saying that this is the heart of the chemical weapons program, then it's hard to know really where else you go. Bombs are bombs, right? They're designed to kill and maim and torture people. So why does the whole world respond to chemical weapons differently? That's in a minute. This is Today Explained. You know, there was a long time we were doing mattress ads on this show, and then there was something of a hiatus where we weren't. And in that time, I got to know the neighborhood I work in a little bit better, DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C.

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Mattress Firm offers 120-night sleep trial to ensure perfection and still offers that 120-night low-price guarantee so you know you paid the perfect price. Again, go to the store or go to mattressfirm.com to learn how your sleeping could be tremendously improved. A long, long time ago, if I can still remember, President Obama said his red line was the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian war. And here we are, years later, different president,

still battling this issue of chemical weapons, and and still probably not, it sounds like, fully disarming Assad's ability to use them. What gives? You're right. It's worth going back to August 20th, 2012, where Obama in a press conference says that the use of chemical weapons is a quote unquote red line and that it would change its calculus for action in Syria. We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus.

That would change my calculus. That would change my equation. A year later, almost a year to the day, August 21st, 2013, the Syrian regime kills about 1,400 people with sarin gas in eastern Ghouta, this area east of Damascus that we talked about earlier. The government strongly denies it, but the pictures coming out of Syria tonight tell a horror story even worse than what we've seen before from their victims. Young and old, dead, but with no marks on their bodies.

It was the biggest chemical attack of the time. Massive atrocity and massive action for Obama to act. There was a campaign that he was going to attack. Then he went to Congress for authorization. And it didn't look like he was going to attack. Then he went to Congress for authorization and it didn't look like he was kind of going to get the vote. It was kind of dicey, but a vote never happened because in September, the U.S. and Russia kind of came to this deal. Secretary of State John Kerry is briefing U.S. allies on an agreement reached over the weekend. It is designed to end Syria's chemical weapons program.

Russia would remove all of Syria's chemical weapons, about 600 metric tons, out of the country so it couldn't use it anymore. Okay. And that was seen as a win. Obama said, like, we did it, we got them all out.

Kerry legitimately said we got 100% of it out. Since that attack, August 21st, 2013, there have been, by Human Rights Watch, 85 instances of chemical attacks, most by the regime.

So did that not actually happen when Kerry said we got them all out? Clearly not. It was kind of, as Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine, said yesterday on Sunday, it was kind of, quote unquote, naive for Obama to believe in Russia to do this. By the way, Jake, they're killing their people daily. This morning, they're bombing again without chemical weapons and still killing people of their own citizens so yes getting involved in terms of chemical weapons is an important national interest but let's not kid ourselves that somehow if we stop chemical weapons from being used the horror of what's going on over there is going to somehow stop as well what is

it about chemical weapons that makes a president go, oh, no, you didn't. You didn't just blow up your people using a regular bomb. Why is it so much worse? That's a great question. It's because we've banned them. They're sort of an international norm against the use of chemical weapons. We as an international community have decided these weapons are bad. And if you use them, then there's sort of this proliferation

risk. So the way we've defined this, Trump and Mattis have defined Trump's authority to use this is using Article Two of the Constitution, where he effectively said this is in the national, you know, the commander in chief is acting using our military for the national interest of the United States. And the national interest is one, to kind of make sure that Assad doesn't use chemical weapons again, but two, as a non-proliferation action. But let's be clear, regular bombs do a lot of damage, too. And if you heard Nikki Haley on Sunday, on Fox News Sunday, she was almost asked this direct question by Chris Wallace.

Well, I think that's just a very unfair question. In what respect are you asking that? And she said, look, we're not saying it's OK. We will condemn it from afar. But almost verbatim, she says that is totally up to Assad. But we will enforce our national interest. And the irony of this is that the Trump administration, Trump in particular, has said, you know, America first. We are not going abroad in search of monsters to destroy. But he's using military force twice now in Syria, it seems to defend an international norm.

So then what do these strikes that Donald Trump authorized, that he promoted on social media, that he spoke about in press conferences that were unrelated as far as I can tell, for the most part? Yeah. What do they tell us about the way he approaches the world, especially militaristically? It's worth noting that April 13th of 2017, Trump told reporters that he would give what he called total authorization to his military.

Okay. To in effect say, if there is something you feel like you need to hit, go and do it. So Trump feels that he now has the world's biggest hammer and is willing to hit everywhere in the world. We're bombing multiple countries, you know, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia. But his doctrine is we will use the military for narrow reasons, right?

There's a terrorist group that I want to destroy or make life very hard for them for. Or in this case, in the case of Syria, I want to make sure that you don't use chemical weapons again. And he's using military force to do so. Does he care about the future of Syria? Does he care about the future of Somalia, Yemen, Libya? Is he going to put any resources into making sure that the conditions there are good so that bad guys don't come up again? Does he care about the way the world works? Or is he willing to intervene for really, really, you know, precise and unique reasons, and then let the chips wallow where they may? That kind of seems like how Trump views the world. Alex Ward is a defense reporter at Vox. If you want to hear how all this got started, scroll back to April 6th in your feeds

and listen to the episode titled It's Never Too Late to Understand the War in Syria. I'm Sean Ramos-Firm. This is Today Explained. I walked into a mattress firm this weekend and the employee working asked me, how can I help you sleep happy? If that's not a nice way to greet someone, I don't know what is. Mattress firm's probably in your neighborhood and if not you can go to mattressfirm.com and use the code

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