While the United States has mobilized a coalition against the Islamic State, Mr. Assad is taking advantage of the fact that the U.S. strategy in Syria is to ignore him. Mr. Obama is resisting entreaties from the rebels and from the Turkish government to make the Assad forces a target, or even to declare a no-fly zone for the Syrian air force. So the regime calculates that chemical attacks that once prompted Mr. Obama to order retaliatory airstrikes now can be carried out with impunity.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 12:25:36 +0000