"Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched,' President Donald Trump announced Thursday night, April 6, 2017. (Screen grab from Fox News)

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is among those backing President Trump’s decision to attack the Syrian air base used by Bashar al-Assad’s air force to drop chemical weapons on Syrian civilians.

“Well, obviously, I think the objective tonight was the destruction of that air base,” Rubio told Fox News’s Sean Hannity, shortly after President Donald Trump announced he had conducted a targeted military strike on Syria for “vital national security” reasons.

“But if you want to know who's getting a message tonight in regards to all this, I think if you are in North Korea, you see this tonight and you start to wonder whether these are people you want to be messing with,” Rubio said.





“I think if you are Iran, you’re starting to think about whether these are the people you want to be messing with.

“And obviously, I think if you’re Bashar al-Assad or Vladimir Putin, you realize that things have changed. And that in fact, if there are things that you are doing that are against the national security interest of the United States, we’re not going to spend two weeks looking for some letter. We’re going to (take) action to protect our interests. That's a big change to what we've had over the last eight years.”

Rubio said Trump was right to order the air strike, for several reasons:

“Number one, Assad had signed an agreement not to have chemical weapons. It was an agreement that the Russians and the United States were signatories to and a part of,” Rubio said. The senator also noted the chemical weapons attack violates a U.N. Security resolution as well.

“And therefore, there needed to be a consequence for it,” Rubio said. “Someone needs to enforce it. Russia’s not going to enforce it, they’re helping them.”

“Number two, I think it's important to remember there are hundreds of Americans stationed in that region, very near to that place, and this guy’s using sarin gas. It could ultimately be used against our own troops. That cannot be allowed to stand, so it is in our national security interests.”

Rubio noted that the U.S. struck a military base that was used not just for chemical attacks but potentially for future chemical attacks, and so the attack “had a strategic objective that was very clear.

“That is how you conduct military attacks, you have an objective and you dedicate the resources to achieve it, and the armed forces of the United States as they always do, did so.

“So the president had the legal authority, the moral authority, and quite frankly the military strategy to be successful at it. It was the right decision that he made.”



