What Red Lines And Foreign Intervention Look Like for Syrian Civilians.
▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/syria/community/2018/04/16/what-red-lines-and-foreign-intervention-look-like-for-syrian-civilians
I have lived in the Syrian capital of Damascus since the beginning of the Syrian conflict. I haven’t left Syria for more than a week, and even then it was only to Beirut and only recently, which means only after seven years of war.
I was in Damascus when U.S. president Donald Trump announced that the U.S., the U.K. and France would launch a joint airstrike targeting Syrian military facilities. I was in Damascus when the strikes hit. I didn’t see them from my house, but I didn’t have to witness the explosions with my own eyes to be able to understand what it means for Syria and what it means for us civilians on the ground.
Anyone who has followed Trump’s speeches since he was elected president can see that he has always criticized the peaceful approach of former president Barack Obama’s administration and its soft policy decisions regarding the use of chemical weapons. This is particularly true regarding Obama’s 2013 declaration that there would be a strike in Syria – a threat he never followed through on. Looking at it this way, it seems Trump didn’t want to go back on his own initial statement that threatened retaliation for the use of chemical weapons, because this would ruin his image on an international level and he would be viewed in the same way as Obama, who he has publicly criticized.