This is déjà vu all over again.
Remember the First Gulf War in 1990? A week before it began, on July 25, Saddam Hussein and US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie met to discuss Iraq’s complaint that Kuwait was draining Iraqi oil fields through slant drilling, and the mobilization of Iraqi troops on the border with Kuwait.
Glaspie told Saddam Hussein: “I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.”
On August 2, 1990 Saddam Hussein ordered the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which was completed within 36 hours. By August 8, US troops were pouring into Saudi Arabian bases and two carrier-based naval battle groups were in the Persian Gulf, starting the run-up to the first large US war since Vietnam.
Cut to 2017. On March 30, US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley tells reporters: "We can't necessarily focus on Assad the way the previous administration maybe did. Do we think he's a hindrance? Yes. Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No." She adds, “It's about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit and focus on getting Assad out.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson confirms: “I think the longer term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people,” language similar to that habitually used by Bashar al-Assad’s Russian allies.
On March 31, Sean Spicer adds at a White House press conference:
"With respect to Assad, there is a political reality that we have to accept. The United States has profound priorities in Syria and Iraq, and we’ve made it clear that counterterrorism, particularly the defeat of ISIS, is foremost among those priorities,”
On April 4, aircraft use poison gas on the anti-Assad, rebel-held Syrian village of Khan Sheikhun in Idlib Province, killing scores of civilians. Yesterday, April 6, two days, later the cruise missiles fly.
Call it miscalculation or a calculated set-up, the flames of the ongoing war in the Middle East have just had kerosene poured on them.