When the Syrian army launched its sarin attack in the Damascus suburbs on Aug. 21, the country's civil war was on a deep back burner in the Obama administration. Senior officials were in the middle of a policy review to determine how to respond to the bloody crackdown by the Egyptian military that had killed hundreds in Cairo one week earlier. On Aug. 27, a meeting of the 'principals committee' of top national security officials agreed on a calibrated package of cuts and delays in arms deliveries to Egypt for Obama's approval. Obama never announced a decision.
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