Nikki Haley: “Not Any Sort Of Option” With Assad In Power

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley spoke with CNN in an exclusive interview on Sunday morning and it appears as though this administration’s policy with regard to the Bashar al-Assad regime has completely changed in the wake of the chemical attack in Idlib.

As a reminder, this would be the very same Nikki Haley who said this just last week:

You pick and choose your battles and when we’re looking at this, it’s about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out.

Do we think he’s a hindrance? Yes. Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No. What we are going to focus on is putting the pressure in there so that we can start to make a change in Syria.

Compare and contrast with her comments this morning:

• “There’s not any sort of option where a political solution is going to happen with Assad at the head of the regime”
• “If you look at his actions, if you look at the situation, it’s going to be hard to see a government that’s peaceful and stable with Assad,”
• “What we’re trying to do is, obviously, defeat ISIS,”
• “Secondly, we don’t see a peaceful Syria with Assad in there.
• Thirdly, get the Iranian influence out. And then finally, move toward a political solution, because at the end of this is a complicated situation.
• Assad’s Actions Shocked the Conscience of Humanity, Haley Says
• “The United States took a very measured step last night” in Syria, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley says at UN Security Council meeting.
• “We are prepared to do more”
• Says Russia was supposed to ensure removal of chemical weapons but hasn’t acted in an accountable manner for activities there
• “The world is waiting for Russia to act responsibly in Syria”
• Says U.S. will not stand by as chemical weapons are used and that U.S. actions were “fully justified”
• Assad must never use chemical weapons again, ever
• Iran continues to play a role in bloodshed in Syria, she says

.@nikkihaley on #CNNSOTU w/ @jaketapper on Assad : "regime change is something that we think is going to happen." pic.twitter.com/DW5BSXeIBG

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) April 8, 2017

We’re not going to get into a lot of conjecture, but this is a truly remarkable about-face and it is very hard to believe that there’s not a whole lot more going on behind the scenes here.