It was almost exactly one year ago when Donald Trump sent 59 Tomahawk missiles into a Syrian air base—an $80 million fireworks show that came after both Russian and Syrian forces were allowed time to move away. One day later, Syrian jets were again taking off from that base, once again attacking the same areas that had been hit with chemical weapons earlier that week, which was the supposed reason for Trump’s attack on the base. Within weeks, Assad had returned to using chemical weapons on civilian populations. And since then he’s done it again …
Government forces have used chemical weapons more than two dozen times during Syria’s civil war, including in April’s deadly attack on Khan Sheikhoun, U.N. war crimes investigators said on Wednesday.
And again …
U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said on Saturday that, despite denials, public reports showed that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was using chemical weapons, and added that it was time for the international community to hold the Syrian government to account.
But Trump, having delivered one high-priced shake of his fist with zero follow-up, did nothing to stop Assad’s continued use of chemical weapons, or the crushing of groups allied with the US by the combination of Russian and Syrian forces. Instead, Trump broadcast to the world his intention to pull all US forces out of Syria, leaving the country in the hands of the man who repeatedly poisoned his own people. Bashar al-Assad wasn’t the only person who saw that as a big green light to do as he pleased.
Republican Sen. John McCain said Sunday that President Donald Trump's comments that the US military would leave Syria "very soon" had emboldened Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, resulting in the reported chemical weapons attack Saturday that killed dozens of the country's civilians.
Donald Trump frequently returned to the idea that he would not telegraph his military actions during the campaign. The whole idea was idiotic from the start. It’s not possible to move a major military force embedded in a foreign country and connected to several different rebel groups on the ground by “surprise.” Many of the announcements that Trump criticized were made after military movements were already underway, or were announcements made explicitly to generate the kind of reactions—ISIS forces fleeing in advance of US troop movements—that were wanted.
However, there’s a big difference between those announcements and Trump’s statement on Syria, which was a huge surprise—to the US military officers trying to manage the complex situation on the ground in Syria. It’s clear that Trump’s statement wasn’t made with the intention of generating any desirable result. It was made with much less thought and study than Trump devotes to coming up with an appropriate childish nickname.
But it was certainly a welcome announcement for Assad, and for Vladimir Putin. McCain, who supported the initial strike on Syria, complained not only about Trump’s actions, but about those of “his predecessors.”
What he didn’t complain about was the action most significant in making the military situation in Syria untenable—the US invasion of Iraq. That invasion left the US in a position where it is trying to defend huge areas on either side of Iran, facing massive expenditures, extraordinary complex political situations, and a shifting set of challenges. It also left both the US public and military in a very poor position to step in and stop genuine war crimes when doing so means a long term commitment of resources.
Trump’s warnings to Syria included a rare finger shake at Vladimir Putin. But so far, that’s the extent of anything that Russia wouldn’t love about Trump’s actions in Syria. Looking back over the last week, Putin would take the deal of implementing some long-delayed sanctions vs. having the US withdraw from Syria any day. Whether it will turn out that Assad jumped the gun—or whether the whole “price” Trump will extract will be limited to pitting concrete with missiles while continuing to remove forces isn’t yet clear.
What is clear is that another round of shooting missiles at concrete will be as pointless as it was a year ago. It didn’t stop chemical weapons attacks on civilians last time. It won’t do so this time. Pretending that it’s in any way extracting a price from al-Assad is an illusion. If the United States wants to pretend it did something, we can just save the fireworks.