WASHINGTON ��The U.S. military stance in Syria beyond the missile strike in retaliation for the Assad government's use of chemical weapons on its citizens, yet the action carries a message for other countries acting outside international norms, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday.
The U.S. still hopes to shepherd a "political process that we believe the Syrian people will lawfully be able to decide the fate of Assad," Tillerson said Sunday in reference to Syria's president on ABC's "This Week."
Last week's airstrike "was a message to Bashar al-Assad that your multiple violations of your agreements at the UN, your agreements under the chemical weapons charter back in 2013, that those would not go without a response in the future," he said.
If President Donald Trump needs to do more in Syria "he will do more,'' United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley said on CNN's "State of the Union." Haley said she doesn't see a political solution in Syria with Assad remaining as president, but that other U.S. priorities were defeating Islamic State and to "get the Iranian influence out.''
Tillerson conceded that removing Assad from power could "ultimately" require more pressure, including military action by the U.S. or an international coalition, but he said that isn't the preferred choice.
"We've seen what that looks like, when you undertake a violent regime change in Libya, and the situation in Libya continues to be very chaotic," he said. "We have to learn the lessons of the past and learn the lessons of what went wrong in Libya when you choose that pathway of regime change."
Tillerson also said the U.S. has "no objective" to change North Korea's regime as Kim Jong Un continues to ramp up Pyongyang's nuclear program, and that there's no reason for the U.S. to lift sanctions placed on Russia following its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Even so, Tillerson said, without naming North Korea, that "if you violate international agreements, if you fail to live up to commitments, if you become a threat to others, at some point a response is likely to be undertaken."
Tillerson is heading to Lucca, Italy, for a two-day meeting of Group of Sevelforeign ministers starting, and he will continue from there to Moscow for meetings with Sergey Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, and other Russian officials.
Pressing Lavrov on Russia's failure to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons stockpile is likely to be part of the agenda. "We've already, I think, issued some very strong statements," Tillerson said. "And yes, that will be part of the discussions."
Russia "agreed to be the guarantor of the elimination of the chemical weapons and why Russia has not been able to achieve that is unclear to me," Tillerson said.
Russia has said it doesn't believe that Assad's forces carried out the attack Thursday and called for a "thorough and impartial" investigation.
