White House Secretary Sean Spicer said Monday that the Trump administration could launch more strikes against Syria should its government use chemical weapons against its own people again.
“If you gas a baby, if you put a barrel bomb into innocent people, I think you will see a response from this president,” he told reporters.
Last week the U.S. launched 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian airfield believed to be where the chemical attack was launched.
While the move was widely praised by lawmakers and pundits on both sides of the political aisle, as well as by U.S. allies around the world, some questioned whether Trump was abandoning his nationalist foreign policy positions.
Shortly before the sarin gas attack, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s status “will be decided by the Syrian people”—a position echoed the same day by U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, who said “our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out.”
After the horrific attack, however, Trump acknowledged his position on the issue changed.
And now, in response to a question about whether the Syrian president must go, Spicer said he “can’t imagine a stable and peaceful Syria where Assad is in power.”