A Quote by Barack Obama
I would have I think made a bigger mistake if I had said, "Eh, chemical weapons. That doesn't really change my calculus." I think it was important for me as president of the United States to send a message that in fact there is something different about chemical weapons [in Syria].
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I think the President Donald Trump was quite clear in his statement that he made to the American people that Syria's continued violations of U.N. resolutions and previous agreements that Syria had entered into regarding the Chemical Weapons Accord would no longer be tolerated. I think we have stood by and watched multiple weapon - chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian regime under the leadership of Bashar al-Assad.
What happened in Syria was, President [Barack] Obama had made a statement announcing what he called his "red line": You can't use chemical weapons, you can do anything else but [use] chemical weapons.
Israel produces and stores chemical weapons. So therefore the US will prevent the Chemical Weapons Convention from being imposed on the Middle East. But it's necessary to evade this by misrepresenting the convention, and I think maybe 100 percent of the media, or close to it, go along. But that's a critical issue. Actually, Syria's chemical weapons were developed largely as a deterrent to Israeli nuclear weapons. Also, not mentioned.
This would be a very good moment to institute a call for imposing the Chemical Weapons Convention on the Middle East. The actual Chemical Weapons Convention. Not the version that [Barack] Obama presented in his address to the nation and that media commentators repeat. What he said is that the convention bars the use of chemical weapons. He knows better. And so do the commentators. The Chemical Weapons Convention calls for banning the production, storage and use of chemical weapons, not just the use. So why omit production and storage?
And, as a consequence of the pressure that we've applied over the last couple of weeks, we have Syria -- for the first time -- acknowledging that it has chemical weapons, agreeing to join the convention that prohibits the use of chemical weapons, and the Russians -- their primary sponsors -- saying that they will push Syria to get all of their chemical weapons out. The distance that we've traveled over these couple of weeks is remarkable.
I think Russia must have been very embarrassed by Syria's use of chemical weapons because it really undercut Putin's role back in 2013 in saying he had helped get rid of Syria's weapons.
No one doubts that innocent men, women and children have been the victims of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. And there's no doubt who is responsible for this heinous use of chemical weapons in Syria: the Syrian regime.
For example, the use of chemical weapons [in Syria]- some on the Democrat side have said well, this encourages the North Koreans to use chemical weapons against our troops.
It was not the United States who invaded Kuwait; it was Iraq. It was not the United States that went to war with Iran; it was Iraq. It was not the United States that fired chemical weapons at Iran; it was Iraq. And it was not the United States that murdered innocent Iraqi citizens with chemical weapons; it was Iraq.
I think what we do really want to do is make sure that we take chemical weapons away from Syrians. And I do as well believe that because of the threats that have come from the United States, that Russia and Syria both understand that there needs to be some action.
At another location, we found barrels of chemical material that was intended for use as biochemical weapons. Everyone talks about there being no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they seem to be referring to completed nuclear bombs, not the many deadly chemical weapons or precursors that Saddam had stockpiled.
I think the Russians need to think more carefully about the commitment they made under the chemical weapons agreements to be the guarantor that these weapons would be seized, they would be removed, they would be destroyed. And since they are Bashar al-Assad's ally, they would have the closest insight as to the compliance.
It has been almost three years since U.S. President Barack Obama pipsqueaked on his chemical-weapons 'red line' in Syria and joined with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in the pantomime that resulted in the Sept. 27, 2013 U.N. Security Council Resolution 2118, which called on Assad to surrender his chemical weapons stockpile.
The other thing I said is the great irony is you will be back fighting against your own weapons. Had [Bashar] Assad been bombed when he used chemical weapons two years ago, ISIS would be in charge of all of Syria now.
The 2013 deal, whereby the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons verified the destruction of 95% of Syria's declared chemical weapons, was negotiated between Russia and the U.S. and either the Russians haven't honored their side of the deal or they have been betrayed by the Syrians.
We achieved a deal with the Russians that didn't wind up in two days of strikes that would have sent a, quote, "message," but would not have removed the weapons. We struck a deal to get all of the declared weapons out of Syria. Never before in a conflict has that ever happened, that during the conflict weapons of mass destruction are taken out of the zone of conflict. And thank God we did that, because if we hadn't done that, today ISIL would have those chemical weapons in large parts of the country.
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