in direct combat. i think we try and avoid that. however, there are always unknown actions that come out of using military power. so if you just politically signaling you re signaling you re angry about something, what happens to the revolutionary guards in iran go after u.s. forces in syria or in iraq? what happens if they put hezbollah up to the israelis? so again, we ought to sit down and say what are we trying to achieve? what are our objectives? and if it is just political signaling, we don t like to see children being killed by chemical weapons. we need to rethink that. the idea of could there be a political solution that may be removes assad from power. the question of assad in russia, russia aligning itself, aligning
the scope of his power, anything lightning th like that? this would be in terms of the goal of the operation, this would specifically this would be a success if there are n more chemical attacks even if he stayses s in power is that fair to say? i think from a military and international legal perspective, yes, the answer to the question is, yes. in other words, we would conduct the strike, do the proportional response, warn the offending party and then stop, reassess the situation. however, if you want my opinion, we have now seen a pattern of behavior from assad going back a decade and it is time for the international community to come together and terminate his efforts in syria. but that s going to be a decision for another day. first and foremost, i believe there will be a proportional strike sometime in the next 24 to 48 hours. all right. admiral james stavridis joining us from boston. thank you for that. appreciate it. again, you heard it right there,
there s going to be an option discussion about regime change. what i think is a lot more likely is going to be a proportionate response directed against the lmts of syrian power that conducted the strike. that means the air force, potentially chemical production facility if we can target that. i think this will be more in the nature of a demonstration, a proportional response with a concurrent warning, obviously to syria, but also to russia. saying that your client, assad, is deeply in violation of international law and, therefore, we will reserve the right to continue to ratchet up the scale of violence, but look initially for proportional decision, perhaps even cruise missile with some limited attack aircraft involved. what would be would the goal then under the scenario you re describing, would the goal simply to be that there are no future chemical attacks, that has nothing to do with the assad staying in power with limiting
welcome? well, first of all, i think what we re seeing very much so as the others have said, very much a work in progress. i mean, donald trump s positis as you pointed out back in 2013 about whatever president obama was doing in syria where we ought to stay the hell out of there, let them kind of resolve. just two days ago, remember, sean spicer told us at the white house it was a position of this administration that bashar al assad should stay in power. then comes the chemical attack. i was in the rose garden yesterday when it was very clear that president trump was terrifically, hardly bothered by the scene of the chemical attack and i read into it, anyway, that there was going to be some response, somehow and pretty soon and he had really honestly flipped on that. so, i think that this is one thing where this intrigue inside the white house, probably everybody is on the same page on this issue, that there has to be
should happen. so the president, who as hans just indicated, had been against removing assad from power, certainly has seemed to make a shift now and he clearly stated in the rose garden yesterday when he had that joint press conference that, and said again today, that he was deeply moved, as anyone was, anyone who saw the pictures of the children, women and children, the innocent people, who were the victims of this attack. so we understand that this could be happening very quickly. i don t have an exact minute-by-minute timing for you. but clearly, it is top of mind for the president, for his staff that is down there and also obviously here on capitol hill where most of the house has started to go home, but of course, members of the senate are going to be here at least through tomorrow night on the neil gorsuch supreme court nomination and watching all of this very closely. chris jansing on the hill. chris, thanks. nbc news chief foreign