Do you actually believe that Assad used chemical weapon on his people, knowing​ the bad press and the threats that would follow? That's kind of stupid

America is desperately searching for a foreign policy.
It's been pro-Israel for generations. That has annoyed the Muslim world and all the Afghanistan/Iraq stuff that followed.
It's cost hundreds of lives and right now,'Allies' are nowhere to be found to continue THAT debacle any longer.
So Trump and his government are on the hunt for a bad guy.
They tried poking Putin with a stick, but he wouldn't bite !
They tried annoying North Korea. But even that crazy s.o.b wasn't daft enough to tangle !
So now they are looking at Syria.
One of the joys of having Trump for a President is that he's SO clueless about other nations, he's such a blunt tool, it's clear what he's up to.
Irony is, the rest of the world is reasonably stable right now.
Why doesn't America just accept that and find something else to occupy it ?

Just five days before the attack, US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said, “The longer-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people,” implying a definite shift in US foreign policy.
Why would Assad put such assurances in jeopardy by launching a horrific chemical attack, allowing establishment news outlets like CNN to once again use children as props to push for yet another massive war in the Middle East?

It's possible, but it seems unlikely. There's little strategic value in having done it, in fact, it just makes things harder on him. I mean, Syria has been winning the ground war, the whole world was watching like a hawk, and the US had backed off it's insistence to replace him. Everything was slowly starting to go his way, but using a chemical weapon would bring the international scrutiny and pressure roaring back, so that's what he did? Doesn't seem to make sense.

Threats and bad press never stopped many other dictators. I don't know about the chemical attack because I haven't had time to look it up to form an opinion but when I look up anything about the Assad family it is described as an authoritarian regime and you know something tells me an authoritative govt just doesn't have anyone's best interests at heart.

It was probably a set-up by America or someone with connections with America as a reason to try to knock him down a bit to profit more on the conflict, Assad is winning, he has no reason to act that way.

He did. The fucker is bat shit insane enough to do worse. I'm just surprised he hasn't done worse

I believe it as much as I believe Russians are hacking elections in every country, 0%.

yep the satellite evidence was presented to the UN and was accepted as fact.

Yes, I do. He's done this before despite very obvious drawbacks, he (or rather the local commander supposedly responsible to Assad) seems to have considerable issues evaluating anything but the shortest timeline horizon.

But FWIW, I'm pretty sure Assad is, and has been since his dad died, a complete puppet for a junta of generals, who make all the decisions

Of course he did. Our government would never lie to us.

Yes , and there is unquestionable evidence that he did so. And if you think that he is concerned about getting a bad press then you haven't been paying attention for the last seven years.

Being a dictator is kind of stupid, but that hasn't stopped him.

They are all acting like kids......why doesn't the world think ahead instead of backwards. Things like the advancement of science, space exploration, technology...our planet ffs!!! Imagine if all the powers of the world thought with one mind and shared all their ressources and their brightest minds. What a different world it would be!! Religion has to go above all if this was to happen.