President Donald Trump said the Obama administration “had a great opportunity to solve” the crisis in Syria when Obama set a “red line” for military intervention. But when Obama didn’t launch such intervention, “I think that set us back a long ways,” Trump said. However, Trump ignores his repeated calls at the time to “not attack Syria.”
Trump is free to criticize President Barack Obama’s handling of Syria and the “red-line” episode. As we said in 2013, Obama blurred the facts on the issue in trying to downplay his remarks. But Trump’s comment also blurs the history of his own statements on the issue.
The White House released a brief statement by Trump on April 4, the day a chemical bombing in a rebel-held area of northern Syria killed dozens of people. Humanitarian groups said the death toll was as high as 100, the New York Times reported. Trump blamed the Syrian government for the attack, but also the Obama administration’s foreign policy.
Trump, April 4 statement: These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the past administration’s weakness and irresolution. President Obama said in 2012 that he would establish a “red line” against the use of chemical weapons and then did nothing.

In an April 5 press conference with Jordan’s King Abdullah, Trump again criticized Obama, saying: “I think the Obama administration had a great opportunity to solve this crisis a long time ago when he said the red line in the sand. And when he didn’t cross that line after making the threat, I think that set us back a long ways, not only in Syria but in many other parts of the world because it was a blank threat.”
Trump said the recent chemical attack had “a big impact on me” and that his “attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much,” but he stopped short of saying he had changed his mind about military intervention in Syria. “I’m not saying I’m doing anything one way or the other,” he said.
At the time of the red-line episode, Trump didn’t describe it as “a great opportunity to solve this crisis.” He instead advocated not intervening in Syria.
Let’s look back at Obama’s 2012 statement, subsequent actions and Trump’s public statements at the time.
In an Aug. 20, 2012, press conference, Obama was asked whether he “envision[ed] using U.S. military” in Syria “if simply for nothing else, the safekeeping of the chemical weapons.” Obama said, “I have, at this point, not ordered military engagement in the situation. But the point that you made about chemical and biological weapons is critical. … We have been very clear to the [Bashar] Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. … We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that’s a red line for us and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons.”
Months later, some Republicans pressed Obama to enforce that red line in some way — though not with a commitment of troops — when the U.S. believed Assad had used chemical weapons.
And in August 2013, a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs killed more than 1,400 people, an act the U.S. determined with “high confidence” was conducted by the Assad government. Days later, on Sept. 4, 2013, as the president was seeking support for military action, Obama claimed that his “red-line” statement wasn’t his red line, but instead one set by the international community and Congress, which had passed legislation in 2003 forbidding Syria from using chemical weapons.
Trump’s stance at the time? He was firmly in the “stay out of Syria” camp. As the New York Times noted, he tweeted more than a dozen times about Syria in 2013, urging Obama not to take action. Through Trump’s prolific use of Twitter, he advised Obama to “forget Syria,” to “NOT attack Syria” and to “stay out of Syria.” And he urged Obama to “not attack” regardless of what Trump called Obama’s “very dumb RED LINE statement.”