Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday said the Trump administration’s top priority in respect to Syria is decimating the Islamic State before deciding how to dismantle Bashar Assad’s regime.
“We believe that the first priority is the defeat of ISIS. That by defeating ISIS and removing their caliphate from their control, we’ve now eliminated at least – or minimized a particular threat not just to the United States, but to the whole stability in the region,” Tillerson told CBS “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson.
“And once the ISIS threat has been reduced or eliminated, I think we can turn our attention directly to stabilizing the situation in Syria. We’re hopeful that we can prevent a continuation of the civil war and that we can bring the parties to the table to begin the process of political discussions,” Tillerson added.
Tillerson said the U.S. wants to remain an outside influencer in that second process, allowing the Syrian people to make their own “self-determination” of what to do with Assad, rather than leave the decision to America and its allies.
Millions of Syrians have fled the country due to the civil war while those who remained in the country have suffered under Assad’s attacks on his own people. Tillerson said this is where U.S. allies will work with the country’s people to ensure a peaceful change in leadership, if they opt for it.
“I think what we’re hopeful is through this Syrian process, working with coalition members, working with the U.N., and in particular working through the Geneva process, that we can navigate a political outcome in which the Syrian people, in fact, will determine Bashar al-Assad’s fate and his legitimacy,” Tillerson said.
The U.S. launched nearly 60 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base on Thursday that had been used to create chemical weapons that Assad used against his own people two days earlier, killing more than 70 people. The Trump administration said it targeted that airfield in an attempt to prevent further attacks on Syrian citizens.
