The Syrian Civil War was six years old last month. The conflict took shape in Daraa after security forces gunned down four who were protesting the arrest of teenage boys accused of painting anti-government graffiti. Estimates of the dead go as high as 470,000. To date, three gas attacks have been attributed to government forces and one to the Islamic State. The UN says that these chemical strikes have killed hundreds.
Was it weird that President Trump was entertaining Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago resort when the U.S. attack on Syria occurred?
The coincidental timing works very much in Trump’s favor. Trump has said that if China can’t curtail North Korea’s development of long-range missiles capable of hitting the United States with nuclear warheads, then the U.S. would be forced to act. Military action is on the table. Having the opportunity to demonstrate his willingness to strike at strongman Bashar al-Assad, Trump might convince the Chinese that unpredictable as he may be, he is not to be discounted. Translation: Pin back the ears of North Korea.
I’m swamped with information about the attack. What do I need to understand?
Three things: Retaliation was swift, targeted and proportional.
Military brass may be tactically aggressive, but they are operationally cautious. It’s not unusual for days – or even weeks – to pass before responding to an international provocation with force. Just days after Assad’s forces unleashed Sarin gas that killed at least 70 Syrians, including children, two destroyers in the Mediterranean launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles. The missiles hit the airbase from which the gas attack was staged. That’s a lot of firepower, but the U.S. has been bombing Islamic State targets within Syria on and off since 2014. ABC’s Martha Raddatz, a tough-minded military and diplomatic correspondent, said Trump’s Syria action was, “The single fastest punishing strike I have ever seen.”
When Trump’s Defense Secretary James Mattis was a general during the Clinton and Obama administrations, he was known to chafe at what he saw as an excess of political caution. In terms of the Syrian attack, this is an example of Mattis unchained.
Are the Democrats going to respond with outrage?
Depends on which Democrats. Hours before the attack, Hillary Clinton called for Trump to bomb Syrian airfields, and she used the plural, implying the need for several attacks. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren hinted she might be sympathetic for the idea of an attack, but not before "essential" congressional approval. Most members of the Massachusetts delegation condemned the attack. Hours after the news, William Cohen – Bill Clinton’s secretary of defense – endorsed the attack. Cohen, however, slyly pointed out that an attack is not a “policy."
Isn’t Cohen taking a cheap shot?
Nope. Nobody on either the respectable right or left has yet accused the Trump administration of coherence. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a rare public statement days before the Syrians gassed their own people, more or less said it was up to Syrians to decide their own fate. A professor might call those words a paean to self-determination. But a dictator with blood already on his hands, such as Assad, could also assume those poorly chosen words represented a green light to kill enemies more promiscuously.
What’s the deal with the Russians? The mainstream media give the impression that Putin is now calling the shots in that part of the world.
Putin’s influence is immense. And don’t discount Iran and Turkey. But as the world’s only full-fledged – if weary – superpower, the U.S., is always a factor.
Here’s a brief tutorial of U.S. relations with Syria: After Assad staged ambitious gas attacks about four years ago, the United Kingdom, France and the US vowed to retaliate. Parliament nixed intervention. President Obama had second thoughts – especially when Congress waffled on giving him attack authority. France was raring to go, but not alone. Putin, then, intervened and got Syria to destroy its chemical weapons.
So now is Russia at fault?
Not likely. The belief is that Assad acted without seeking approval from his Russian overlords. Vladimir Putin condemned the missile launches, and the Kremlin called the move "an act of aggression against a sovereign state delivered in violation of international law under a far-fetched pretext." At the behest of the Russians, the U.N. Security Council convened an emergency meeting Friday morning.
