Ken Roth at CNN:
Was Trump simply demonstrating that he is not President Barack Obama, responding militarily to the chemical weapon "red line" that Obama chose instead to enforce through the negotiated removal of what President Bashar al-Assad claimed were all of his chemical weapons? Or was Trump showing that even he has limits to the atrocities he will tolerate?
Russia claims that the April 4 attack was a Syrian conventional bomb that happened to hit a "terrorist" chemical weapons cache on the ground. That cover story was quickly undercut by the fact that Khan Sheikhoun residents began suffering symptoms from a sarin attack five hours before Russia said the conventional attack took place.
Then, last week, Human Rights Watch decimated the cover story. Dozens of local residents interviewed said that a crater in the middle of a paved road appeared to have been the epicenter of the chemical exposure and that there were no indications that other sites attacked that morning contained any stored chemicals.
More here.