Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now...
The public assessment of Friday's missile strike and the forceful rhetoric came as G7 ministers met in Italia to send a "clear and coordinated" message to Russia over its support for Damascus.
The United States on Friday blasted 59 Tomahawk missiles at the Shayrat air base near Homs, which the Pentagon said Assad's jets had used to launch a deadly chemical attack on rebel-held Idlib province.
"The United States will not passively stand by while Assad murders innocent people with chemical weapons, which are prohibited by international law and which were declared destroyed," Mattis said in a statement, noting that 20 per cent of Assad's "operational" aircraft were destroyed.
"The Syrian government would be ill-advised ever again to use chemical weapons," he added.
Mattis's warning came as White House front man Sean Spicer appeared to lower the threshold for new US action against Assad to include barrel bombs, a crude yet hugely destructive weapon of choice for the Syrian leader.
"If you gas a baby or drop a barrel bomb onto innocent people, you will see a response from" President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
, Spicer said.
But US officials later walked back Spicer's remarks.
"Nothing has changed in our posture," a senior administration official said.
"As the president has repeatedly made clear, he will not be telegraphing his military responses," the official said.
Trump discussed Syria during separate telephone calls Monday with British Prime Minister Theresa May and German Chancellor Angela Merkel
...current chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as
Mom...
May and Merkel "expressed support for the action of the United States and agreed with President Trump on the importance of holding Syrian President Bashir al-Assad accountable," the White House said in a statement.
Downing Street said Trump and May had "agreed that a window of opportunity now exists in which to persuade Russia that its alliance with Assad is no longer in its strategic interest." The two leaders were looking to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's trip to Moscow this week as an opportunity to lay the groundwork for a "lasting political settlement," May's office said.