This podcast is sponsored by Selaplan from Berry Brothers and Rudd, collecting fine wines for future drinking.

Hello and welcome to The Spectator Podcast. I'm Lara Prendergast and on this week's episode, we'll be looking at the escalating crisis in Syria and wondering how America, France and Britain might respond.

We'll also be looking at the world of drill music and wondering whether it's responsible for the

rise in crime in London. And finally, we'll be asking, what happened to girl power?

First up, President Trump is facing a major foreign policy test in the Middle East.

Reports came in over the weekend of a brutal chemical weapons attack

in Duma. The most likely suspect is President Assad, or as Trump likes to call him, Animal Assad.

But as Paul Wood asks in this week's cover, how certain can we be that it really is Assad's doing?

And what will the US do in response? Paul is the BBC World Affairs correspondent, and he joins

me now, along with James Forsyth,

our political editor. So Paul, we seem to be in this slightly extraordinary situation now where we

have a standoff between Trump and Putin. How quickly do you think things are going to escalate?

When this happened last time, it was a matter of hours almost between tweet and missile launch,

but this time they're contemplating something much bigger, maybe multiple

strikes, multiple targets over several days, maybe with British and French involvement,

and now with the Russians squaring up against American action. So it's a lot more complicated.

There is a planning process to go through. The Americans are moving military assets into

theatre, as the generals like to say.

People are talking about the weekend.

James, how likely do you think it is that there will be strikes in the next coming days?

I think it's almost certain that there will be strikes.

If you look at the Trump tweet today, it makes it crystal clear that he plans to hit Assad in response to this attack.

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