President Trump ordered a military strike against three targets in Syria on April 14, 2018.\u00a0 The United Kingdom and France partnered in the strike, adding legitimacy to the decision as our European allies employ a much stricter standard for use of force and targeting decisions.\u00a0 The strike was in response to Bashar Assad\u2019s most recent use of chemical weapons against his own people, dispensing chlorine gas, and possibly sarin gas, against innocent civilians who were just trying to go about their lives.\u00a0 Trump ordered a similar strike just about one year ago in response to a similar atrocity by Assad.\u00a0 While the three targets were destroyed, military experts and pundits have been questioning the strategy.\u00a0 While it is fair to say the U.S. lacks a clear policy or strategy in Syria, it is also fair to say we absolutely had to act.\u00a0 No action in the face of such barbarism was not an option.<\/p>\n
There is valid criticism of the policy and the choice of targets.\u00a0 First, I want to call out those who were circulating a specific meme on social media negatively commenting on the strike.\u00a0 The meme \u201cthanks\u201d Russia and Syria for not striking the U.S. last year in response to the administration\u2019s handling of the Native American protest over the Keystone Pipeline expansion.\u00a0 I strongly disagree with the government action forcing the pipeline through important Native American land and the way they responded to the protests.\u00a0 However, drawing a parallel between that and Assad using chemical weapons is highly offensive and grossly inaccurate.\u00a0 Anyone who asserts such a similarity demonstrates a complete lack of understanding about chemical weapons and the effect they have.\u00a0 That said, there are legitimate challenges to U.S. policy worthy of discussion.<\/p>\n
In the immediate sense, destroying those three targets accomplished little.\u00a0 Reportedly, the U.S. fired around 100 missiles from air and sea.\u00a0 The attack likely cost over 250 million dollars (total cost still being assessed and hard to pinpoint other than the cost of each missile \u2013 1.25 million dollars).\u00a0 Unfortunately, there was very little bang for a whole lot of buck. \u00a0Assad has shown in the past that these efforts to deter future use of chemical weapons are ineffective.\u00a0 He retains the complete support of his patron Russia, thus his hold on power.\u00a0 If strikes will have any impact on Assad or deterrence value, the strikes must deplete his military or impact his grip on power. \u00a0For example, strikes on military airbases that destroy several aircraft or missile defense systems would have significantly more impact.\u00a0 There is evidence Russia acquiesced to the three targets from Saturday, opting not to use their defensive systems to protect the targets or defeat the strike.\u00a0 Such coordination is nothing new and certainly contributes to the effectiveness of allied missiles and safe return of allied aircraft.\u00a0 The President foolishly taunted Russia and Syria for the ineffectiveness of their systems, failing to shoot down a single U.S. missile.\u00a0 The reality is that if they had employed their defensive systems and not acquiesced to the targets, they most assuredly would have prevented a percentage of the missiles from getting through, making the strike even less effective.\u00a0 In any case, the U.S. and allies had to act in response to Assad\u2019s vicious attack and at least the plan was well executed.\u00a0 Future plans need more thought.<\/p>\n
Syria poses a complex foreign policy challenge for the U.S.\u00a0 Bashar Assad, just like his father before him, is a brutal dictator who represses his people and destabilizes the already volatile region.\u00a0 The regime maintains close relations with Iran, who not only props up the Assad regime, but uses Syria as a base of operations for its proxy forces, including Hezbollah, to commit terrorist acts against Syria\u2019s neighbors, conduct training, and work to destabilize the already dangerous region.\u00a0 Groups freely use Syria as a base of operations, freely crossing the borders with Turkey and Iraq for nefarious purposes.\u00a0 ISIS has controlled territory in Syria in its attempt to create a caliphate along with territory it controls in Iraq.\u00a0 Syrian Kurds, just as with Iraqi Kurds, have played a significant role in the fight against ISIS.\u00a0 The U.S. touts successes in Syria (and Iraq) against ISIS and those successes would not have occurred without Kurdish fighters, yet we abandon the Kurds when the fighting ends.<\/p>\n
Syria was among President Obama\u2019s foreign policy weaknesses.\u00a0 The infamous \u201cred line\u201d debacle degraded U.S. strategy and credibility in Syria and the region.\u00a0 On the campaign trail President Trump spoke a lot about this, vowing his policy would be one of action.\u00a0 However, thus far the Trump Syria policy, if there is a policy, has been vague and feckless.\u00a0 Part of any U.S. Syria policy must include the Russian influence over the Assad regime.\u00a0 After the strikes, the logical next step would be sanctions against Russia designed to force them to either lessen their support for Assad or use their influence to prevent him from committing additional atrocities against his people.\u00a0 U.N. Ambassador Haley announced sanctions for this very purpose. \u00a0President Trump then apparently changed course, no longer approving the sanctions. \u00a0As reported by the Washington Post, he apparently had a temper tantrum because Haley announced the sanctions on TV and he wanted to be the one to do it.\u00a0 Seems plausible, but this also goes to the ongoing strange devotion President Trump has for Vladimir Putin and could very well be the product of direction by Putin.\u00a0 This is likely considering that Russian troops recently attacked U.S. troops in Syria and the U.S. took no action.\u00a0 In fact, the President hasn\u2019t spoken about it.<\/p>\n
While we do not want a proxy war with Russia in Syria, the status quo is not acceptable.\u00a0 The Trump Administration, along with future administrations, must have a better-defined policy.\u00a0 First, we need to address Russian influence and support for the regime.\u00a0 Second, we need to take a position on whether U.S. efforts intend to remove the Assad regime and whether we support the Syrian opposition forces to defeat Assad.\u00a0 U.S. special forces are on the ground with Kurds and Syrian opposition groups.\u00a0 They need a clearly defined mission to further our national security interests or they need to come home.\u00a0 Third, we need to address the legitimate sovereignty and autonomy concerns of the Kurds.\u00a0 They have led the fighting against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and proven to be the most reliable partners in those countries.\u00a0 Fourth, Syria must cease its support for Hezbollah and other groups to operate within its borders against neighbors Lebanon and Israel.\u00a0 If Syria wishes to maintain close ties with Iran, they cannot continue to acquiesce to Iranian efforts to destabilize the region and foment the Sunni\/Shia conflict.\u00a0 These are complex and difficult challenges.\u00a0 It will not be easy or quick.\u00a0 However, if the U.S. is to remain interested and involved in the region, we must have a thoughtful, intentional Syria policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Trump ordered a military strike against three targets in Syria on April 14, 2018.\u00a0 The United Kingdom and France partnered in the strike, adding legitimacy to the decision as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16,225,282,306],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-airstrikes","tag-president-trump","tag-syria","tag-u-s-syria-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}