A US cruise missile strike on Syria’s Shayirat airbase in April 2017 was a message to China, US President Donald Trump told Fox News on June 12. Then, the missile strike was publicly justified with reports on the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces.
However, now Trump provides another explanation of the US motivation behind the attack.
“I told him, ‘Mr. President, we just sent 58 missiles into Syria to hit a certain target and he said ‘please say it again’ with his interpreter. I said ‘we just sent 58 missiles… Every single one of those missiles from 700 miles away from ships in the ocean. 58 missiles – 58 hits,’” Trump said in an interview recalling that the strike took place during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Florida.
“But that was done because Syria’s Assad had used chemical gases against children and we had to do that. Had President Obama gone over the red line I think that maybe he would’ve had a different story in the Middle East, but he didn’t do that,” the president claimed.
“I told [Xi Jinping] that either he is going to leave or we’ll be good friends. He didn’t leave. He understood, he really understood.”
These remarks by Trump is another indication that the US uses the conflict in Syria pursuing own political goals in the region and around the world. All the US attacks on Syria justified by “chemical weapons usage” were carried out without any propper investigation of the US-backed accusations.
