Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Sputnik on Friday that Moscow was no longer bound by a moral duty not to supply Damascus with S-300 air defense missile systems after last week's Western strikes on Syria.
Supplying those weapons will contribute to the political stability of the Syrian government, Samer Shiha, a member of the Syrian People’s Assembly, told Sputnik later in the day.
On April 13, the United States, assisted by France and the United Kingdom, fired 105 missiles at targets in Syria, while the US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman and its task force are currently sailing toward the Eastern Mediterranean.
The Syrian government said it had not used chemical weapons and the incident was staged by the Jaish al-Islam terror group to pave the way for a foreign intervention in Syria.
US PREPARING TO LAUNCH MORE ATTACKS ON SYRIA
The missile strike against targets in Syria last week seems to be a prelude to additional attacks, University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle cautioned.
"It sounds like they will do it again," Boyle said. "The carrier strike force heading there: It should be there later this week. Why is the Truman heading over there right now at flank speed? It doesn’t look good."
Boyle pointed out that the readiness of the United States and its allies to launch last week’s strike against Syria before undertaking any real investigation into who actually carried out the April 7 chemical attack in Douma encouraged all the jihadi groups in Syria to launch more such attacks.
"[The strikes were] basically an invitation to aggressive jihad groups to stage another chemical weapons attack," Boyle said. "This was not a one off affair, as [Secretary of Defense James] Mattis claimed… It is a very dangerous situation."
Boyle noted that the attack on Syria violated the terms of United Nations Charter and was a crime against international law.
Also, "Under US constitutional law it clearly violates Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. It is an impeachable offense: It contravenes US Army Field Manual 2710 The Law of Land Warfare," he said.
"Why did Trump bomb on [April 13]? What was the rush? Trump knew full well Comey was publishing his memoirs: So he bombed. President [Bill] Clinton did exactly the same thing during the Monica Lewinsky matter in 1998. Barbara Ehrenreich then called it ‘The Bimbo Bombings,’" he said.
Boyle predicted Trump was likely to resort again to bombing Syria in his efforts to distract the US public from Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into his affairs.
"I am afraid we will probably be seeing more bombing by Mr. Trump as the whole Mueller-gate matter is not going away… It is important to understand the danger here Trump is in the same situation as Clinton. The danger is not past. Syria could become the Sarajevo of 1914," Boyle said.
However, Trump’s political opponents and war hawks wanted to push the president into more strikes against the Dasacus government, Boyle warned.
"It does seem to me that they are using the Mueller investigation to pressure Trump to attack Syria," he said.
US RUNNING RISKS OF 1914 SARAJEVO-STYLE ESCALATION
Historian and political commentator Dan Lazare agreed that the April 13 strike had only been intended as the first step of a far more massive US military campaign against Syria.
"The US cannot leave Syria, it will never leave Syria, and the Friday the 13th missile strike is only a foretaste of greater US military aggression to come… Damascus is the Sarajevo of the 21st century," he said.
"Trump wanted a show of force — while Defense Secretary Mattis didn't want anything that might spiral out of control. So, the US warned Russia that Trump was about to blast some empty buildings to pieces," he said.
Lazzare warned the attack shows that the United States cannot resign itself to the fact that President Bashar Assad is winning the Syrian Civil War and that it will therefore ratchet up its intervention as he tries to consolidate his gains.
"US policy has never been more cynical, vicious, and foolhardy. But as bad as Trump is, the rest of official Washington is even worse," he said.
Since the missiles were launched, all one hears is that they weren't enough, Congress is crazy, and the press is even worse, Lazzare added.
