Florida senator Marco Rubio told THE WEEKLY STANDARD Thursday that he was heartened by President Donald Trump’s changing tone on Syria.
Trump, whose administration said last week that Assad’s rule remained a “political reality,” told reporters Wednesday that the chemical attack shook him and is causing him to re-evaluate his attitude toward the regime.
“It shows a willingness to adjust, to learn, to grow,” Rubio said. “It was a very promising development and just watching it, it was clear that he was personally impacted by the images emerging from Syria.”
“I found it to be an important moment in his presidency and quite frankly a very hopeful one,” he added.
Rubio’s optimistic remarks came one day after he suggested that secretary of state Rex Tillerson, by deemphasizing Bashar al-Assad’s removal, unintentionally incentivized the Syrian leader to wage a horrific chemical attack against his own people.
“It’s my belief if you’re Bashar al-Assad—and you read that it is no longer a priority of the United States to have you removed from power—I believe that that is an incentive to act with impunity,” Rubio had said during a press conference condemning the chemical attack. “I personally do not believe it is coincidental.”
Still, Rubio said that Assad would have executed the attack regardless, considering his history of committing such heinous acts.
In an apparent shift Thursday, Tillerson said that the United States is organizing an international effort to remove Assad via a political process.
“Those steps are under way,” he said. “With the acts that [Assad] has taken, it would seem that there would be no role for him to govern the Syrian people.”
Tillerson called on the Kremlin to rethink its support for the Assad regime the day prior.
Trump has not specified what the administration’s strategy in Syria would be going forward, but said that the attack had a “big impact” on him.
“The attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me—big impact. That was a horrible, horrible thing,” Trump said. “It is very, very possible—and I will tell you it’s already happened—that my attitude towards Syria and Assad has changed very much.”
Arizona senator John McCain also lambasted the administration’s Syria policy Tuesday, but softened his criticism Wednesday after a meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
