Sen Marco Rubio, R-Fla., suggested Wednesday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s recent comments about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may have emboldened him to go ahead with one of the deadliest chemical weapons attacks of the six-year Syrian civil war.
“In this case now, we have very limited options, and look, it’s concerning that the secretary of state … said that the future’s up to the people in Syria on what happens with Assad,” Rubio said on 970 WFLA.
He added that Tillerson’s apparent willingness to walk back conditions of how it hopes to end the Syrian conflict is “almost nodding to the idea that Assad was gonna get to stay in some capacity.”
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a few days later we see this,” Rubio said, referring to the chemical weapons strike on a rebel-held Syrian town that killed dozens, including children. Assad was tied to another deadly chemical weapon attack back in 2013, which killed hundreds, after which his government agreed to destroy its chemical weapons and joined the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Witnesses say this latest attack was carried out by Syrian and Russian jets. The Syrian government rejected that it was involved in the latest chemical weapons attack, and pinned blame on the rebels themselves.
Rubio predicted that there may be complaints and even a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, but then “life will go on and he’ll stay in power.”
