U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley says she doesn't expect a political solution in Syria with President Bashar Assad in power.
Johnson expressed his support to the USA on Friday after it fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Shayrat airfield near Homs in central Syria.
Speaking on "Fox News Sunday", White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said the United States was "prepared to do more" regarding military action in Syria if necessary.
He did not offer any proof for that assertion.
"I think what we should do is ask Russian Federation - how could it be, if you have advisors at that airfield, that you didn't know that the Syrian air force was preparing and executing a mass murder attack with chemical weapons?" he said. Rebels don't lay down their weapons when they know the government can then renege on any promises made to a now-powerless opposition.
Of the USA missile strike on Assad, the senior official said: "We don't yet know if this is a one-time effort or not".
In that interview airing Sunday on CBS, Tillerson said Russians were not targeted by the strikes.
Only a week earlier, Tillerson had alarmed US allies by indicating the USA was no longer interested in pushing for Syrian President Bashar Assad's removal from power.
But US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson blamed Russian inaction for helping fuel the chemical weapons attack it had reacted to, saying Moscow had failed to carry out a 2013 agreement to secure and destroy chemical weapons in Syria. "I think we ought to ask them a question".
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Haley said the USA was prepared to take further action in Syria but hoped it wouldn't be necessary. A fully developed proposal is expected to be delivered to Trump's desk in the near future, a senior administration official said.
Haley said that the Trump administration's view was that a political solution would not happen with Assad in power, though she stopped short of saying Assad's departure was now official U.S. policy.
Washington accused the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad of the attack and on Friday launched cruise missiles at a Syrian air base that the Pentagon said was involved. For that to happen, he said, "this oppressive Assad needs to go".
In a separate development, activists opposed to the Islamic State group said a US -led coalition airstrike hit a boat carrying civilians fleeing across the Euphrates River.
Haley told CNN removing Assad was one priority for the U.S. Others include defeating ISIS and removing Iran's influence on Syria.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said defeating Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading Assad to step down.
"I do not see any grounds for optimism and worry that expectations will be disappointed", said Tamara Cofman Wittes, a former deputy assistant secretary for Near East affairs at the State Department under Obama.
Russian Federation is Syria's most powerful ally and has propped up the Assad regime with air power. USA officials noted that the timing of the strike had the possible added benefit of signaling to China that Trump is willing to make good on his threat to act alone to stop North Korea's nuclear pursuits if Beijing doesn't exert more pressure on Pyongyang.
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