Iraq veteran Dem: Syria will become ‘a lot harder’ for Trump

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) says the path in Syria will get “a lot harder” for President Trump after he launched a missile strike against the country.

“War doesn’t get any easier than what he did last night, throwing a few Tomahawks at a foreign country,” Moulton said Friday on CNN’s “New Day.”

“It’s gonna get a lot harder, and he’s going to have a lot of questions to answer,” added Moulton, a former Marine captain who did four tours during the Iraq War. “We don’t really know what we’re fighting for in Syria. And, fundamentally, that’s just not fair to our troops.”

The U.S. launched a missile strike in Syria late Thursday in response to a chemical attack officials say was conducted by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad earlier this week, according to The New York Times.

{mosads}The Pentagon said warships launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at an airfield near the Syrian city of Homs, which is where a deadly gas attack two days before reportedly originated.

The attack marked a sharp shift in the administration’s Syria policy. Just a week ago, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said that whether or not Assad was in power was up to the Syrian people.

Trump ordered the strike, which killed nine people, according to USA Today, one day after admitting his view of Assad had changed upon hearing the chemical attack’s impact on civilians.

“It is in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons,” he said Thursday at his Mar-a-Largo resort in Palm Beach, Fla.

“Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children,” Trump added of Tuesday’s attack, which killed more than 70 people, including over 20 children. “No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”