By Arlen Grossman

 (Editor’s Note: What you see here is a revised and expanded version of s previous post. This version was headlined at OpEdNews.com., April 19, 2018, with over 2500 views.)

Think about this:

1. Syrian President Assad had no good reason to use chemical weapons. He surely was aware that such action would be condemned by the world community and result in an American retaliation.

2. By most accounts President Assad is winning the Syrian civil war, and lacks any sensible military reason to use chemical weapons.

3. The U.S. has a record of lying to initiate wars (e.g. WMDs in Iraq, the Gulf of Tonkin incident in Vietnam).

Today, there appears to be no evidence released to the public that Syria was responsible for the April 7 chemical attack in Douma that a few days later resulted in a U.S., British, and French military strike.

Defense Secretary James Mattis admitted that the U.S. had “no evidence” that the Syrian government used Sarin against its own citizens in 2017 and just a few days after the Douma chemical attack, admitted the U.S. is still “looking for the actual evidence” that Syria used chemical weapons.

As usual, politicians and the mass media, without any proof, took the word of the U.S. government that Syria was responsible for using chemical weapons against its citizens.

My guess would be that eventually there will be another chemical attack in Syria and it will be blamed on President Bashar Hafez al-Assad and his government. This will open the gate for the United States and its allies to take out President Assad and install a new government, as well as striking a blow against Russia and Iran.

Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, flatly told the U.N. Security Council on April 14, “If the Syrian regime uses this poisonous gas again, the United States is locked and loaded. When our president draws a red line, the president enforces the red line.”

Of course, it would make no rational sense for Assad to use chemical weapons in the future and invite the wrath of the world and an assault by the U.S. and its allies–just as it made no sense for him to do it this most recent time. Such a move defies logic and common sense. Assad had little or nothing to gain by using chemical weapons in Douma.

There are no heroes in this story, certainly not Assad, Russia or Iran.  Then again, the United States, Britain and France are hardly good guys if it is shown they concocted a plan to falsely blame the Assad government for using chemical weapons.

Something smells bad, but it’s not sarin or chlorine.