An American-led attack on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime could lead to “a clash between the two superpowers,” a Russian ambassador warned Friday.
“We are banking on sober thinking among both American politicians and U.S. military brass, who perfectly understand that the risk of a clash between the two superpowers really does exist,” Vasily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, told Russian media.
President Trump and key European allies have been contemplating a strike against Assad, who is a client of Russia’s, in retaliation for the reported chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians and injured hundreds of others Saturday. Trump last year ordered one limited strike against Assad, which failed to deter future chemical weapons attacks, but world leaders regard a new attack as likely to have a broader scope and a greater likelihood of Russian retaliation.
“Our president has not yet made a decision about possible actions in Syria,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Friday during a Security Council meeting. “But should the United States and our allies decide to act in Syria, it will be in defense of a principle on which we all agree. It will be in defense of a bedrock international norm that benefits all nations.”
Russia denied that Assad used chemical weapons last weekend, maintaining instead that the attack was staged to provide a pretext for a Western attack on the regime.
“We have the irrefutable data that this [chemical attack] was staged,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday. “And special services of a country, which is now seeking to be in the first ranks of the Russophobic campaign, were involved in this staged event.”
Trump and other Western leaders, however have blamed Russia and President Vladimir Putin in particular for the incident. “President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “Big price to pay.”
