Trump’s first strike

Donald Trump took his toughest action in Syria’s civil war when the US military let loose a volley of missiles on a Syrian air base said to be staging site for the April 4 chemical attacks. The US has tried this approach in Sudan, Somalia and many other locations. Each time the killed militant leaders have been replaced by new recruits. Apart from the fact that Syria had no pressing reason to use chemical weapons as it has the upper hand on the battlefield and a voice in the Geneva peace talks, one strike or two hardly deters a sovereign country.

The US claims the strike was intended to deter Syria from launching chemical weapons again as well as to tweak Russia’s ears for incompetence in supervision. The muscular interventionist strike is clearly contrary to Trump’s earlier “we-are-not-in-the-business-of-regime-change” stance. The strike is being seen as the triumph of the internationalist faction within the Trump administration. All those who feared that Trump was going to “stay at home” and abandon US’s global responsibility can now feel a sense of satisfaction that the new President stands co-opted.

It will never be clear who carried out the chemical weapon attacks: whether the Al Qaida\ISIS conducted a “false flag” attack or the Syrians themselves used a hidden cache. But Trump has clearly muddied the waters. The world had shown the resolve to exterminate the ISIS\Al Qaida. But the unilateral air strike effectively ends inter-country coordination in Syria and could trigger a wave of refugees whom the West does not want. All through the Syrian war, the West has protected non-state actors from total elimination because its endgame is Bashar al-Assad’s ouster. For a world shocked and horrified by the chemical attacks, the best tribute to the victims would be to give a new impetus to the Geneva talks while eschewing impetuosity in international affairs. The world community should also grab the Syrian offer for an impartial probe. The use of chemical weapons is a crime against humanity and its perpetrators must experience the pressure and the torment of a probe.