By Patricia Lee Sharpe
Donald Trump’s greatest triumph re Syria last weekend was probably the feat of roping the Brits and the French into a fireworks show that didn’t accomplish much.
Let’s begin with the positives.
1. The coordination was impressive. Missiles rained in from all directions and they hit their targets. As good as the Rockettes at their Christmas best!
2. What’s more the hail of incoming wasn’t intercepted by an effective missile defense. This, unfortunately, could mean two things. The defenders lacked the capacity to protect the targeted sites—or they chose not to, thus cannily not betraying the full force of their defensive capacity, given the relative insignificance of the sites at risk.
3. Meanwhile, always a good thing: there wasn’t much “collateral damage” in the way of civilians killed. This could be understood in several ways. The strikes were artfully selected and targeted. Or the people normally on site were evacuated. Or the sites, no longer of critical importance, had been largely abandoned anyway. Also to the good, moreover, none of the losses were Russians, the potential killing of whom had much occupied the planners of the strike.
In sum, the NATO trio had reinforced stern warnings with dramatic, highly visible action, and although the results might have been better, they might also have been much worse.
Does this "mission accomplished" mean that a consistent, coherent, long term Syrian strategy has now been put in place? Evidently not. The strike had all the appearance of a caper designed to allow Donald Trump to distract critics, impress the base and allow the impresario-in-chief to take a bow. So let’s examine the three stages of the latest Trump “reality show.”
1. First came the promotion, the days and days of audience-building by bluster and hype. And oh! the suspense! Will he or won’t he?
2. Then came the performance, the rain of missiles, which hit their targets. A great show! “Fire and fury,” initially obscuring the sad futility.
3. Finally came the victory lap, the epic boasting, the strutting, the exaggeration of effect: “A perfectly executed strike last night!” True enough. But the further claim that the American-led strikes had taken the “heart” out of Syria’s chemical weapons program was already being contradicted by Pentagon officials who conceded that Bashar al-Assad probably retained the capacity to slaughter many more Syrians with chemical agents whenever he saw the need.
In short, Trump’s missile strike turned out to be as successful as the Obama/Russia negotiations which also failed to rid Syria of chemical weapons. What an irony!