The USA (possinly EU as well, I havent followed the news on this) are also actively supporting other extremely repressive regimes - most notably and uncontroversially, Saudi Arabia. They have even all but endorsed Saudi Arabia's murder of an American journalist on foreign soil (they have officially condemned it, but have taken 0 measures beyond a declaration).
US government imposed sanctions on 17 Saudi officials who were connected with the killing.
They couldn't punish Prince Mohammed bin Salman because he is expected to be King at some point soon which means any sanctions would be nonsensical. How does a travel ban for example work against the leader of any country let alone an (unfortunate) ally.
There simply isn't any good options for punishing world leaders.
Erm, no. A single JDAM would send much stronger signal. Of course it would bring repercussions, and that is the reason for purely symbolic actions taken instead: USA won’t do anything that could hamper their military influence in region.
