JUDY WOODRUFF: And now to Syria and the increasing likelihood of new American strikes against
the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
As we reported earlier, the president telegraphed his intention today to strike Syria again.
William Brangham charts the potentially dangerous road ahead.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, what options are available to the United States and its allies if there
is a military response to last weekend's chemical attack?
To walk us through the complex battlefield, I'm joined by Ambassador Douglas Lute.
He was U.S. ambassador to NATO from 2013 to 2017, served on the national security staffs
of Presidents Bush and Obama, and is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general.
He's now at Harvard's Kennedy School.
Welcome back to the "NewsHour."
LT.
GEN.
DOUGLAS LUTE (RET.), Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO: It's good to be back.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: First off, let's jut address this issue of, can you confidently said that
this chemical attack that happened last weekend was carried out by Assad?
LT.
GEN.
DOUGLAS LUTE: Well, I think we have some degree of confidence, largely because of the scale
of the attack.
This wasn't an assassination attempt of one or two people, but, rather, dozens of people
were involved here.
And that suggests a military attack.
And, of course, it's the Assad military, the Syrian military that has this capability.
So, at least circumstantially, all fingers point towards the Syrian military.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: OK.
President Trump treated this morning, the missiles are coming.
Let's say we do go forward.
What are the options for the U.S.?
LT.
GEN DOUGLAS LUTE: Well, I think the first thing to consider here is that the options
will flow from the purpose of the attack.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Meaning what we want to get out of it.
LT.
GEN DOUGLAS LUTE: The objectives, right?
And these have to come from a very deliberate process inside the Situation Room, led by
National Security Adviser Bolten, and ultimately approved by the president.
So once the objectives are set -- and, here, I imagine the objectives are reasonably simple,
and that is to punish those responsible for this particular attack, to impose costs, and,
by way of those costs, attempt to deter future attacks.
And if that's the objective, from that flows tasks to the intelligence community, tasks
to the diplomatic community, and tasks to the military.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And we have heard that the Russians have said, if the U.S. strikes, they
might strike back.
Not only will they try to knock our missiles down, but they might even target the platforms
from which we launch those attacks.
Is this Russian just saber-rattling?
How seriously do you take this?
LT.
GEN DOUGLAS LUTE: Well, the thing that concerns me about this sort of exchange of rhetoric,
on our side, but then the response on the Russian side, is that can already see a pattern
of escalation, even in the rhetoric.
And the challenge here is that such escalatory steps can be imagined to be controllable.
From inside the Situation Room, they might -- we might imagine that these are discrete,
controllable steps.
But, in practice, they're often out of control, and we can lose control, and they can spiral
in an escalatory manner because of miscalculation and misperceptions.
So the danger here, I think, is that we launch into something that becomes escalatory.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, obviously, we have got so many different actors at play in Syria.
You have got the Turks.
You have got the Russians.
You have got the Americans.
You have got ISIS.
LT.
GEN DOUGLAS LUTE: The Iranians.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The Iranians.
Do you worry those people might also be drawn into this?
LT.
GEN DOUGLAS LUTE: Well, I think inevitably there's that risk.
We know that Russian forces and Iranian forces are intermingled with Syrian forces, advising
them and assisting them.
So, a U.S. strike, which is intended to precisely strike Syrian forces responsible for this
attack, could inadvertently strike Russian and Iranian forces as well.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: What do you think about the option of not responding?
Is that a viable option?
LT.
GEN DOUGLAS LUTE: Well, that's always an option as well.
The challenge here is that the rhetoric has already put us on the path towards -- in setting
expectations towards a response.
So, there's a certain cost by now, if now, we were not to do anything.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Do you think that these attacks, however we do it -- we saw that the
president launched 59 Tomahawk missiles a year ago to try to curtail this kind of behavior.
Is there a sense that we can stop Assad from using chemical weapons?
I mean, he has done this dozens of times in Syria.
LT.
GEN DOUGLAS LUTE: I would be very careful in suggesting that we are in the driver's
seat here, and that we can actually effectively deter Assad.
Why is that?
Deterrence rests on the notion that we can impose costs sufficient on Assad to change
his calculus, to change his behavior.
The challenge here is that, for Assad, this is existential.
This is survival.
So how do you raise the cost above survival?
And because of this disparity in interests, he's all in and we have only limited interest,
it's very difficult to deter him.
And I think that's why we have seen over the last year-plus that these sorts of attacks
continue.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Ambassador Douglas Lute, thank you, as always.
LT.
GEN DOUGLAS LUTE: Good to be with you.