Assad's Asymmetric Methods Like Chemical Weapons to Brutalize Civilians

At the start of the uprising against his rule, Assad had claimed that the forces behind the rebels were not Syrians, but foreigners trying to undermine his country. Like his father, he always believed that he had the right to do whatever he wants to his own people in Syria. In 2018, Ben Rhodes, President Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor and host of POTS Safe America, wrote an article titled Inside the White House During the Syrian Red Line Crisis. He traces out how the Obama White House went from shock and rage and an impulse to do something at the Syrian chemical weapons attacks to gradually conferring with other world leaders and backing down.