This is the Kator Daily Podcast for Friday, April 7th, 2017. I'm Caleb Brown.

The Trump administration's attack on Syria over possible chemical weapon use by Syrian

President Bashar al-Assad marks a stark change in policy from just last week.

The President sought no congressional approval and apparently very little international support.

Chris Preble, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato

Institute, comments.

The explanation that the President gave and Secretary Tillerson sort of amplified this, that

it really was about the use of chemical weapons and not merely

the fact that chemical weapons were used.

There have been international conventions against the use of chemical weapons going back to the

end of World War I, of course, but the fact that

Bishar Assad had agreed essentially to an addendum to those agreements in 2013 when he supposedly

gave up his weapons the deal that President Obama and John Kerry

negotiated with the Russians and the Syrians after the first incident involving chemical

weapons.

So it is possible that these strikes are designed exclusively to send a message with respect

to the use of chemical weapons by the Vichar Assad regime or it could be as many of us fear

just one step among many on the path to much greater U.S. involvement in the Syrian Civil War.

Okay, so you know the concern that I think a lot of people had with candidates like John

McCain and Hillary Clinton was this always taking that next step toward war.

And typically it was no fly zones and things like that trying to set up potential close quarters conflicts and you know this is obviously a step

far beyond that and well yes and no because of course the United States has been

...