US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says he sees no role for President Bashar Assad in governing the Syrian people

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Thursday that steps have already been taken towards regime change in Syria.

According to media reports, when asked whether the president is planning to organize an “international coalition” to remove the Syrian president, the secretary said: “Those steps are under way.” He concluded: “It's a serious matter. It requires a serious response.”

Tillerson

On Wednesday, Tillerson warned Moscow that it should "re-think" its support for Assad.

#BREAKING US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warns Russia time to re-think support of Syria's Assad — AFP news agency (@AFP) April 5, 2017

But Tillerson does not speak for the intelligence community.

As AntiWar.com notes:

[W]hile seemingly every political figure in the Trump Administration is on board for this war, military and intelligence personnel are said to be increasingly concerned with the narrative line of the government, saying they have major doubts about the Assad gas attack narrative, and are concerned this will escalate into war on a false pretext. Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi was interviewed on the matter, saying many US intelligence officials believe the Russian narrative that the Syrian airstrike was a conventional bomb that hit an al-Qaeda chemical cache. He added that the US narrative made no sense because Assad would have no motive to launch such a strike.

Moscow has made it clear that it will continue to support Assad's efforts to fight Islamic State and other terrorist groups operating in Syria.

Russia isn't budging. If the US wants a showdown in Syria — that's exactly what it will get.