 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we're going to be talking about the recent U.S. attack on Syria in which more than 50 cruise missiles were fired. For this, we have with us Prabir Purkayastha, NewsClick chief editor and expert on international affairs. So, Prabir, what is the impact of this U.S. attack on Syria? I think this is a qualitatively new situation because if you remember, earlier Obama had threatened to go to war against Assad and at that time also it was a chemical attack in Ghouta near Damascus, which was the issue. And at the last moment, the U.S. backed off as did the French and the British. Now, this time, Trump, who initially had said that he's going to look at a new policy, seems to have carried through what Obama did not, what Obama at the last moment had backed off, which is take action, military action in Syria against the Saudi government. This is, it seems, peers, 69 Tomahawk missiles to really cruise missiles have been fired at an airport in Syria. Interestingly enough, this is the airport which has been very active against the ISIS. So, the argument that the U.S. has been given Assad is not very serious against ISIS. This is the airport from which ISIS was being attacked and this is the airport then the U.S. has attacked. So, are they, in fact, helping ISIS? That's a key question that comes up because there is all one of the cities which is surrounded where the U.S. has bombed and bombed the Syrian troops. In fact, helping the ISIS over there, that is still under siege and in, recently the Syrian's have made some gains over there. So, is it, in fact, trying to help the ISIS retain its position in Deir Ezzor? Is that the reason? We don't know. But it is also true that, yes, the chemical attacks that have taken place or the chemical incident that has taken place supposed to have killed 100 to 200 people or in those pictures have emerged little babies dying. So, how did this picture? Yes, true. But who has done it? U.S. has no authority to take unilateral war action against any other country. Syria is a sovereign country. An attack of this nature is essentially an act of war and is a war crime as per international law. So, the fact that U.S. doesn't seem to see itself bound by any international norms. There is no security council resolution. There is no consensus on what has happened. That U.S. should take action. I think that's a very serious issue. Now, let's also look at the bigger picture. We have Russia supporting the Saudi government. You have Iran over there. You have on the other side the Gulf monarchies. You have Saudi Arabia. You have Turkey. You have Israel and the Western powers on the other side. Ranged, we don't know with who. We have also the Al Qaeda, which is the Jabhat al-Nusra now renamed into something else, ISIS, which are avowedly everybody's enemies. But in spite of that, we have seen the Western powers repeatedly along with Saudis, Turkey and Israel essentially range themselves with Jabhat al-Nusra or with ISIS as the case may be in order to weaken as they see their main enemy, which is Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in the region. And of course, Russia, which is the one which is at the moment supporting them. So, this is a very dangerous situation because you have U.S., which is of course a nuclear power, enormous military strength and your Russia also militarily strong, has nuclear weapons also in Syria with the Saudi government. What is the response they will make? What is the response the Saudi government will make? Can they respond against American forces? American forces are there now with the Kurdish groups in Syria. Again, something that they have not taken clearance either from the Security Council, United Nations or from the Syrian government. So, this makes this situation fraught with danger. And if it is one of a kind, something they have done as a show man ship, just so Trump can say, I'm a strong president. I'm not in the alliance with Russia. I'm asserting my independence. If that is so, it's a one of a kind issue, then maybe things will cool off a little. But it has certainly ruptured the relation between the United States and Russia, made the approach which could have happened under Trump that I think has been made more difficult and we are seeing a head-to-head clash between two nuclear powers. So, as you mentioned the chemical attacks, what is the information that we have on this and the impact of this attack, which the U.S. is seeing done by the Syrian government? No evidence has been shown which proves who has done the attack. There are two narratives that are there. One narrative is that this is a Syrian government attack and they dropped chemical weapons in this particular town or area and then so many people have died. This is one narrative. The second narrative, which the Syrian government has said, which the Russian sources have said, Russian government has said openly, is that a bomb would have been dropped, which hit a munitions chemical storage, which the Al Qaeda forces were holding over there and it is this dispersal of the chemicals that they had stored, which has caused the death. So, there are two different narratives. Media seems to have discounted completely what Russia is saying, saying that Al Qaeda does not have the capability of holding or developing the Syrian, the nerve gas, which is supposed to have caused the deaths. Now again, was it Syrian? Was it some other chemicals? We do not really know, again, unless there is conclusive medical evidence, which is out of the proper investigation. It is very difficult to say this, but yes, some of the pictures seem to show that there could be some kind of a chemical that have caused this death. So, one is what is the chemical? How did it happen? This is one part of it. Second part of it, which has come out again widely, that white helmet, which is the one which is taken the video, white helmet is a creation of the Americans, the British and the French governments. They have given it public information, not giving anything out of my, spinning anything out of my head, 100 million dollars worth of money. And that is what white helmet is supported by. They have this fancy GoPro camera stuck to their helmets, which takes all these videos. And they seem to be a video agency as much as what they claim, a civil defense agency. So, they have created all these videos, which are used widely. And they are used widely for disinformation and quite often for manufactured news. So, how trustworthy is white helmet in creating such videos? How good is the testable? Is the other question? And there is a Swedish doctors for human rights who have claimed that this video shows that white helmet either does not know how to handle babies, which have who have been hurt or have been injured in such an operation, or they are willfully killing the small kids as a part of creating a video. So, both of these would be very damaging if it is true. And if this is, if this really is true, this is itself a crime against human humanity. So, I think the picture is too quick, it is too complex at the moment for us within two or three days to establish who is the actual culprit in this case. I would also like to comment that there is now enough evidence that ISIS and Al Qaeda both have the ability to manufacture chemical weapons. The US has certified that yes, this is true. In fact, a year back, there is huge concerns that there could be nerve gas released in the underground in UK. And the huge number of reports coming out that this is the fear that they have. There is also documentary evidence that ISIS has the capability to manufacture sarin. And so does Al Qaeda. So, given this kind of scenario to argue that only Syrian government has the ability to use chemical weapons, and Al Qaeda or the ISIS do not have such capability is utter nonsense. Now, with Trump in power, what do you have to say about the US that has changed its political position in regard with Syria? Well, we actually see a continuity with the policies that Obama had and what Hillary Clinton was proposing, which is a hard line against the South government, bomb them, go to war. It seems that Trump is continuing the same policies. So, all the rhetoric we saw before the elections or during the election seems to have come to naught. And either Trump has decided that this is too risky and the piece is just not worth it. It's better to count out to the New York on establishment in the United States. Or this was just electoral rhetoric. And he really had no other plans except to continue. What I would call Israel is the imperialist policies of the United States, which is war in West Asia, supporting Saudi Arabia and others. And it's essentially over control of oil control over oil and support to Israel's existence. Any peace, any kind of forces like Hezbollah, Syria, Iran are threats to Israel and the domination of they have over oil. So in that sense, it seems to be the continuity that is overtaken from policy. And if some of us had hopes that Trump would prove to be more of a real, real politic and would try to come to some understanding over West Asia and with Russia, I think that is now for that's something that we can't expect. Thank you so much for talking to us and as these things progress, we'll come back to you. Thank you for watching NewsClick. This is all the time we have.