as many as 1,729 people.
But all Obama did was effectively outsource the enforcement of the UN’s prohibitions on poison gas to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and in the process, proved to the tyrants of the world that they could get away with mass murder because the U.S. would not stand in their way. The deal with Moscow didn’t even prevent Assad from using poison gas as a weapon of mass destruction. More than 300 chemical attacks carried out by the regime under Russian protection have been clearly documented.
Syria is now, effectively, part of Iran's Shi'ite crescent. And the excuse for not intervening – the vaunted Russian air-defence system the Assad regime suposedly had at its disposal?
It never existed, despite the claims of the Obama administration, and it still doesn’t exist. In 2017 and 2018, in a largely performative effort, U.S., French and British missiles struck installations in Syria without breaking a sweat. Since 2013, the Israeli Air Force has carried out hundreds of attacks on Hezbollah targets inside Syria. The Russian anti-aircraft batteries have been as useless to Assad as his Chinese-installed low-altitude radar systems we’re all supposed to be so afraid of.
The Israelis have lost a single F-16 in all this activity. The fighter-bomber’s pilots bailed out over Israel, and the plane went down on a hillside near Kibbutz Harduf. In retaliation, or maybe just for sport, the Israeli Air Force destroyed more than a third of Syria’s air defences.
The only reason Assad has been able to carry on with his savagery is that the world has allowed him to get away with it. And the world owes the Syrian people a lot more than a bureaucrat’s apology.
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