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Trump Admin Cleaning up Obama's Foreign Policy Mess in Syria

<p>The recent gas attack in Syria is a painful example of how Obama&rsquo&semi;s approach to foreign policy was downright stupid&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In 2012&comma; Obama announced that the use of chemical weapons would be his &ldquo&semi;red line&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In 2013&comma; Assad&rsquo&semi;s forces gassed 1&comma;400 civilians&period; Instead of retaliating immediately &lpar;like Trump did last week&rpar;&comma; he asked Congress for approval&period; The attack was never launched&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Obama then signed an agreement with Russia and Syria that aimed to rid the Assad regime of all chemical weapons&period; In 2014&comma; then-Secretary of State John Kerry said that Syria had coughed up &ldquo&semi;100 percent&rdquo&semi; of its chemical agents&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This statement was proved false last week when more than 80 civilians perished in a chemical gas attack in northern Syria&period; Like the nuclear deal with Iran &lpar;JCPOA&rpar;&comma; there was no hope of the agreement with Syria ever panning out like Obama had naively hoped&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&ldquo&semi;We always knew we had not gotten everything&comma; that the Syrians had not been fully forthcoming in their declaration&comma;&rdquo&semi; admits Tony Blinken&comma; a national security adviser under Obama&period; &nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The failure of the 2013 agreement is a serious bow to Obama&&num;8217&semi;s legacy&comma; as it was his only defense for failing to launch an attack after Syria crossed the so-called &&num;8220&semi;red line&period;&&num;8221&semi;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;The defense was that he got all the CW out&comma; and now that defense is shown to be plain false&hellip&semi; If Obama administration officials knew that at the time&comma; they were deliberately misstating the facts&period; I think Obama will never live this down&comma; nor should he&comma;&rdquo&semi; said Elliott Abrams&comma; a national security adviser under President George W Bush&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&ldquo&semi;The lesson I would draw from that experience is that when dealing with mass killing by unconventional or conventional means&comma; deterrence is more effective than disarmament&comma;&rdquo&semi; said Tom Malinowski&comma; former assistant secretary of state for human rights&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Ann-Marie Slaughter&comma; a national security adviser under Obama&comma; praised Trump&rsquo&semi;s decision to punish the Assad regime for its crimes&comma; comparing it to &ldquo&semi;years of useless handwringing in the face of hideous atrocities&period;&rdquo&semi; &nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&ldquo&semi;For me&comma; this tragedy underscores the dangers of trying to do deals with dictators without a comprehensive&comma; invasive&comma; and permanent inspection regime&comma;&rdquo&semi; said Michael McFaul&comma; Obama-era ambassador to Russia&period; &ldquo&semi;It also shows the limits of doing deals with Putin&period; Surely&comma; the Russians must have known about these CW&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Robert Einhorn of Obama&rsquo&semi;s State Department agrees the&nbsp&semi;2013 agreement was a failure&period; &ldquo&semi;If the Syrian government carried out the attack and the agent was sarin&comma; then clearly the 2013 agreement didn&rsquo&semi;t succeed in its objective of eliminating Bashar&rsquo&semi;s CW&period; Either he didn&rsquo&semi;t declare all his CW and kept some hidden in reserve&comma; or he illegally produced some sarin after his stock was eliminated &ndash&semi; most likely the former&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Sarin is a &&num;8220&semi;Schedule 1&&num;8221&semi; substance&period; It is a colorless&comma; odorless&comma; extremely potent nerve gas&nbsp&semi;that causes suffocation&period; Sarin is considered a weapon of mass destruction&comma; and its production was outlawed in 1997&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>While many Obama officials have admitted the deal was a failure&comma; some continue to argue that removing 1&comma;300 tons of CW was better than nothing &&num;8211&semi; even if Assad ended up keeping some&period; &ldquo&semi;Imagine what Syria would look like without that deal&comma;&rdquo&semi; said Blinken&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Author&&num;8217&semi;s Note&colon;<&sol;strong> Why would you make a deal with a dictator who has already shown he is willing to kill his own people&quest;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This is just one example of how Obama&rsquo&semi;s bad ideas are coming to fruition&period; I wonder how many more of Obama&&num;8217&semi;s deals will have to be cleaned up like this&&num;8230&semi;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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