Editorial of The Times

Trump’s war whoop:

5MONDAY, APRIL 10, 2017DAILY EXPRESS | PERISCOPE

By James M. Dorsey

By Mike Whitney

By Simon Reich

What is surprising about this week’s US air strikes in Syria is not the fact that US President Donald J. Trump ordered the launching of missiles – although it adds spice that he apparently did so while hosting the Chinese President at Mar-a-Lago

With his appointment of generals in key national security positions as well as his budget proposals, Trump had already signalled a more muscular, military-oriented approach to foreign policy.

And what that meant in practice has been evident since he came to office in January via the greater US military engagement in Yemen.

What is surprising is that Trump — days after he had declared that he was president of the United States, not president of the world — acted to uphold international law and packaged it in terms of compassion.

For Trump, the triggering event may clearly have been that he was taken aback by the horror of the Syrian chemical weapons attack (the death of “beautiful babies.”)

The US strikes were obviously also designed to show that Trump was not beholden to Russia.

Trump may not have a clearly formulated policy framework. Or maybe he does, but wants to keep everybody guessing. He has repeatedly stated that he would not broadcast his intentions to the world.

Whichever it is, with his Syria move, Trump is keeping China on its toes with regard to North Korea. He is also keeping Iran on it toes, particularly given the chances that President Hassan Rouhani could lose the forthcoming May election to a hard-liner.

As it stands, all the predictions of a US withdrawal from its role as the guarantor of a world order and of a rush into US isolationism are proving premature, even if one is seeing a rollback on liberal US values such as pushing a human rights agenda.

But even here, Trump is confounding his critics. Witness the liberal(!) voices in the United States who now find themselves applauding Mr. Trump’s bombing action, where Barack Obama, their own standard bearer and his eternal caution, drove them to despair.

If much of Trump’s initial period in the White House was marked by a sense of insecurity and defensiveness about the legitimacy of his election, the missile strikes that enjoyed bipartisan and broad international support may have put that behind him.

That has implications for the impact of US investigations into Russian meddling in the US elections.

Trump acting like a global juryTrump’s turn to the more “classical” style of US

interventionist policies also has an impact on the populists in Europe. Their isolationism-driven hopes for electoral success in France and Germany were in many ways inspired by Trump’s success.

The instinctive liking they took to Donald Trump is now tempered by the reality shock that he at least acts like a classical-style American internationalist.

Much as they do not want to recognize it, Donald Trump is acting like a global jury – where judge, jury and executioner are one and the same, i.e., the U.S. government.

That puts the likes of French populist leader Marie le Pen in a real bind. Despite her initial criticism of the strikes, she may not want to stray too far away from his muscular policies, for fear of not being described as accomodationist and a foreign policy weakling.

What Trump’s Syria bombing really means

An attack on an ammunition dump that contained chemical weapons has touched off a mas-sive propaganda blitz aimed at drawing the United States deeper into Syria’s six year-long war. The incident which took place in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, killed an estimated 72 people and left several hundred others severely ill. According to Russia Today:

“The warehouse (that was bombed) was used to both pro-duce and store shells containing toxic gas…The shells were deliv-ered to Iraq and repeatedly used there… Both Iraq and interna-tional organizations have con-firmed the use of such weapons by militants.” (RT)

Reports in the western media have dismissed the RT account as “nonsense” and placed the blame squarely on Syrian Presi-dent Bashar al Assad. Leading the charge once again is the New York Times chief propagandist Michael R. Gordon who, readers may recall, co-authored fake news stories with Judith Miller about Saddam’s elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction. Here’s a sam-ple of Gordon’s work from a piece he wrote (with Miller) in 2002. It helps to put Tuesday’s incident into perspective:

“More than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has em-barked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb, Bush administration of-ficials said today. In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to en-rich uranium. American officials said….”

(New York Times)Gordon’s article helped pave

the way for invasion of Iraq, the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and the destruction of one of the world’s oldest civiliza-tions. Now he’s moved on to Syria. Here’s a blurb from his latest piece titled ‘Worst Chemical Attack in Years in Syria; US Blames Assad’:

“The United States blamed the Syrian government and its pa-trons, Russia and Iran, on Tues-day for one of the deadliest chem-ical weapons attacks in years in Syria, one that killed dozens of people in Idlib Province, includ-ing children, and sickened scores more.

“A senior State Department official said the attack appeared to be a war crime and called on Russia and Iran to restrain the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria from carrying out further chemical strikes.

“Britain, France and Turkey joined Washington in condemn-ing the attack, which they also attributed to Assad’s govern-ment. The United Nations Secu-

rity Council was scheduled to be briefed on the attack on Wednes-day.”

(New York Times)Does that sound like a justifi-

cation for war? Gordon seems to think so.

And Gordon is not alone either. He is joined by the entire western media and their blood-thirsty col-leagues on Capital Hill. Now it appears that President Donald Trump –who promised an end to Washington’s regime change wars– has joined their ranks. Here’s the statement Trump is-sued on Tuesday shortly after the attack:

“Today’s chemical attack in Syria against innocent people, including women and children, is reprehensible and cannot be ignored by the civilized world. These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the past admin-istration’s weakness and irreso-lution. President Obama said in 2012 that he would establish a “red line” against the use of chemical weapons and then did nothing. The United States stands with our allies across the globe to condemn this intolerable attack.” President Donald J. Trump, Office of the Press Secretary, April 04, 2017

Repeat: “These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime …cannot be ignored by the civilized world”. Is Trump planning to lead the US into a war with Syria?

Compare ‘President Trump’s’ comments this week to ‘Candidate Trump’s’ comments in December 2016:

“We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past…We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments…. Our goal is stability not chaos, because we want to rebuild our country (the United States) …In our dealings with other countries, we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good will.”

Quite a difference, eh? Now check out these blurbs on Trump’s Twitter account in 2013 when Citizen Trump was trying to per-suade Obama that he should “stay the hell out” of the Syrian conflict.

From the Real Donald J. Trump– “We should stay the hell out of Syria, the “rebels” are just as bad as the current regime. WHAT WILL WE GET FOR OUR LIVES AND $ BILLIONS? ZERO”

5:33 PM – 15 Jun 2013Donald J. Trump– “President

Obama, do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremen-dous downside. Save your “pow-der” for another (and more im-portant) day!”

6:21 AM – 7 Sep 2013Donald J. Trump– “What will

we get for bombing Syria besides more debt and a possible long term conflict? Obama needs Con-gressional approval.”

11:14 AM – 29 Aug 2013The difference between Citi-

zen Trump and President Trump could not be starker. Citizen Trump was nearly a pacifist while President Trump has deployed more Marines and Special Forces to Iraq and Syria, 2,000 more US

combat troops to Kuwait (in an-ticipation of a broader conflict) and stepped up US operations in Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan and beyond. Even more troubling is the fact that he has loaded his for-eign policy team with right-wing militarists like James “Mad Dog” Mattis (who levelled the Iraqi city of Falluja in a vicious fit of rage.) and Lt Gen HR McMaster, who was recently denounced by a re-tired senior US Military Police officer, Arnaldo Claudio, as a war criminal for “human rights abus-es of detainees in Tal Afar, dur-ing the Iraq war.” (See: ‘US Army Investigator Accuses National Se-curity Adviser McMaster of War Crimes in Iraq’, The Libertarian Institute)

What’s so disturbing about the appointments of Mattis and Mc-Master is that Trump has appar-ently relinquished control over foreign policy and handed it over to his generals whose political ori-entation is at the far right-end of the spectrum.. Check out this clip from an article at Antiwar.com by Jason Ditz:

“Trump Expands Pentagon’s War Authority– Trump Giving Commanders Increasing Autono-my to Conduct Operations

“While most of the talk about the Pentagon’s proposals for various wars to President Trump has focused on requests for more troops in more countries, a much less publicized effort has also been getting rubber stamped, one giving commanders in those wars increasing autonomy on operations….

“While President Trump is ea-

ger to make such moves early on to show that he is “listening to the generals,” granting so much autonomy to the military to fight its own wars without political oversight is risky business…. as it further distances America’s direct foreign interventions from politi-cians, and by extension from the voters, turning the details of ma-jor military operations into little more than bureaucratic details for career military brass.

These major changes are hap-pening in almost complete si-lence, as while there have been mentions of the Pentagon seeking these new authorities, always as an afterthought to getting more troops, there is little to no interest in debating the question.” (anti-war.com)

Think about that for a minute: The world’s most lethal killing ma-chine is now in the hands of career militarists who are trained to win wars not seek political solutions. How can this not lead to a dra-matic escalation? Trump thinks that by abdicating his responsibil-ity as Commander in Chief he is showing his support for his gener-als, but what he’s really doing is revealing his feeble grasp of how the system works. His approach can only lead to more needless carnage, that much is certain.

So what happens now, and how does all this fit with Tuesday’s chemical attack in Syria?

The western media and the po-litical class have already decided that the incident is going to be used for two purposes:

1. Discredit Syrian President Bashar al Assad

2. Create a justification for in-creasing US military involvement.

The fact that Assad and Putin have already denied that Syria used chemical weapons (“We deny completely the use of any chemical or toxic material in Khan Sheikhoun town today and the army has not used nor will use in any place or time, neither in past or in future,” the army said in a statement, as quoted by Reuters) is not going to make any difference at all. The pretext has already been established and the Pentagon’s strategy may soon be launched.

At the very least, we can expect a more forceful attempt to seize and occupy the eastern quadrant of the country, establish military bases, impose a no-fly zone, and boost the number US combat troops in the theater. There’s also a good chance that the US will en-gage the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) at DeirEzzor in their effort to clear and capture east Syria.

The prospects of a conflagration between the United States and Russia are increasing by the day.

God help us all. -Mike Whitney writes on

politics and finances and lives in Washington State. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.

A Gulf of Tonkin moment?

Demonstrators hold placards during a demonstration organized by the Stop the War Coalition to protest against US President Donald Trump's decision to launch attacks against Syrian targets, in central London, Britain April 7, 2017 - REUTERS/Hannah McKay

About the AuthorJames M. Dorsey, scholar

and award-winning journalist is a senior fellow at S Rajaratnam School of International Studies. This article was originally featured on theglobalist.com

On April 6, two US Navy destroyers in the Mediterranean Sea fired 59 Toma-hawk cruise missiles at Shayrat airfield in western Homs province in Syria. The strike purportedly came in retaliation for the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons in an attack in Khan Sheikhoun earlier in the week.

According to the Pentagon, the strike targeted aircraft, hardened aircraft shel-ters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems and radars. The intent was to minimize civilian casualties and comply with the Laws of War, according to the Department of Defense.

This mission signalled a radical depar-ture from what candidate and now Presi-dent Trump had suggested would be his administration’s position of disengage-ment on Syria.

It also certainly differed with the poli-cies of his predecessor, Barack Obama. American missions in Syria had until now been confined to attacks against the Islamic State and allied groups – careful-ly avoiding confronting the government of Bashar al-Assad. Now, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has suggested, regime change in Syria is back on the agenda.

What does this airstrike portend? I think there are four key points to bear in mind, at home and abroad.

Four issues moving forwardFirst, the attack signals a shift away

from the isolationist policies advocated by the alt-right, best reflected in the views of Steve Bannon, chief White House strategist. Indeed, some nationalists have already repudiated their support for Trump as a result of the attack. The decision is therefore consistent with what The New York Times referred to as the “downsizing of Bannon” in foreign policy

matters. This was formally signalled with Bannon’s removal from the National Se-curity Council.

Second, even under Trump, it seems, the US is returning to its conventional pattern of foreign policy – what Presi-dent Obama once scathingly called the “Washington playbook.” One of the key components of that playbook is a willing-ness to intervene globally by using force globally to protect human rights and up-hold international norms. In this case, that means taking action against the pro-liferation of chemical weapons.

Trump’s decision may have been emo-tional, but it was justified by both inter-national norms and America’s “vital” national security, very broadly defined. “America First” apparently doesn’t mean a withdrawal from America’s traditional role – what former Secretary of State Ma-deleine Albright called “an indispensable power,” or others have called being the world’s policeman.

Trump promised a radical departure from traditional foreign policy. Ironi-cally, in retrospect, it now appears that it was President Obama’s refusal to inter-vene that was the radical position. Candi-date Trump promised not to get involved – but like many presidents before him, soon got dragged into the maelstrom of the Middle East.

The third conclusion is that Trump’s honeymoon with Putin’s Russia appears to have been short-lived. Russia imme-diately moved to suspend agreements on military cooperation in Syria with the U.S. intended to prevent accidental en-counters between the two militaries. But the Russians also said they would bolster Syria’s air defense systems, and have been reported to be planning to send a frigate into the Mediterranean Sea to visit the

logistics base at the Syrian port of Tartus. Rhetorically, the language being used by Russian officials was notable, calling the attack a “blow” to U.S.-Russian relations and a breach of international law.

It is hard to tell the extent to which the accusations against Trump administra-tion officials – that they colluded with the Russians in the electoral process – played a role in the decision to establish their in-dependence by confronting the Russians in Syria. But it will be interesting to see how much administration officials use this incident as an example of Russia’s lack of influence in congressional inves-tigations in the months ahead.

My final, and most speculative, point is that it is hard not to contemplate that the Trump administration was also using this occasion to send a warning to North Korea’s government. It may have been completely coincidental that the attack took place a day after the North Korean regime launched its latest missile and China’s Premier Xi was meeting with Trump – with North Korea reputedly high on the agenda. But neither the North Koreans nor the Chinese could possibly have missed either the administration’s warnings about potential preemptive ac-tion against the North Koreans nor the example set in Syria of doing so.

With the Trump administration, we have quickly discovered that it is a fool’s errand to try to predict what will happen next. But the clearing of the smoke may suggest, ironically, that in many ways these activities signal a return to business as usual in US foreign policy.

-Simon Reich is professor in The Di-vision of Global Affairs and The De-partment of Political Science, Rutgers University Newark, and this article was originally featured in The Conversation.

It was hard not to feel some sense of emotional satisfaction, and justice done, when US cruise missiles struck an air-field in Syria on Thursday (6). The coun-try’s president, Bashar Assad, needed to understand that there would finally be a cost for his brutality, in this case the use of chemical weapons with sarin, a banned nerve agent that killed scores of civilians earlier this week in one of the worst atrocities of the Syrian civil war.

But it is also hard not to feel unsettled by the many questions raised by Presi-dent Donald Trump’s decision. Among them: Was it legal? Was it an impetu-ous, isolated response unrelated to a larger strategy for resolving the complex dilemma of Syria, a nation tormented not just by civil war but also by the fight against the Islamic State? So far, there is no evidence that Trump has thought through the implications of using mili-tary force or figured out what to do next.

For a man who had campaigned on an “America First” platform of avoiding entanglements in overseas conflicts and who repeatedly warned his predecessor, Barack Obama, against military action in Syria, Trump made a breathtaking turnaround in the space of 63 hours after the chemical attack. He has long argued that the top priority was fighting the Islamic State, not forcing Assad from power; indeed, as recently as last week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the United Nations ambassador, Nikki Ha-ley, had reinforced the perception that Trump was perfectly willing to live with Assad.

Trump explained the shift by saying that he had been so deeply moved by tel-evision footage of child victims gasping

for breath that “my attitude toward Syr-ia and Assad has changed very much.” However sincere this sentiment, the spectacle of a president precipitously re-versing course on war and peace on the basis of emotion or what his defenders describe as “instinct” does not inspire confidence.

One also has to wonder why he was not similarly moved by the 400,000 Syr-ians who have died since the war broke out in 2011, or by the thousands of Syrian refugees he has barred from the United States.

So what did the 59 missiles accom-plish? Militarily, this was a measured response that severely damaged Syrian aircraft and infrastructure at Al Shayrat airfield. Tactically, it may help persuade Assad (and other problematic leaders, like those in North Korea) that using weapons of mass destruction will not go unpunished. But Assad still has his chemical weapons, and the civil war en-dures.

The airstrikes allowed Trump, whose presidency has so far been defined main-ly by its stumbles, to separate himself from Obama, who threatened military action in the event of a chemical attack but who, after such an attack, chose a smarter course, a deal in which Russia guaranteed the removal of Syria’s chemi-cal weapons. It is not clear whether the Kremlin failed to follow through or sim-ply allowed Assad to retain his lethal capability. In any case, Russia deserves condemnation, as does Iran, which is also enabling Assad with military and other support.

Whether by design or not, the US mili-tary action has also shifted the focus from

the scandal over Russia’s interference in the election on Trump’s behalf and al-legations that the president and his al-lies may have colluded with Moscow. At the same time, it has made it harder for Trump to meet his goal of improving ties with Russia. Hoping to avoid a military confrontation, Washington alerted the Russians in advance of the airstrikes. Even so, President Vladimir Putin’s of-fice called the strikes a “significant blow” to Russian-American relations, sus-pended an agreement meant to prevent accidental clashes and threatened to re-inforce Syrian air defenses.

On the plus side, the airstrikes have given Trump a lift in Sunni states in the Persian Gulf, which chafed at Obama’s refusal to take direct military action against Assad. European allies and members of Congress also endorsed his decision. But the action lacked authori-zation from Congress and the UN Secu-rity Council, raising questions about its legality and spotlighting a rich irony. In 2013, Trump argued that Obama must get congressional approval before at-tacking Syria. Congress, with a long his-tory of ducking its war-making responsi-bility, refused to give it.

Studies show that one-off military strikes achieve little. Whether this one has given Trump any leverage with which to press Russia for a diplomatic solution may become clearer when Tillerson visits Moscow next week. But the greater need is for a comprehensive strategy and congressional authoriza-tion for any further military action. There are risks the president simply can-not take on his own.

-New York Times News Service

Four takeaways After the airstrikes, what’s next?