So I (Mission) Creep
Trump Takes “Syrious” Action Against Assad
TL;DR:
Thursday, March 30th: U.S. Announces Removing Assad No Longer A Priority
- Speaking at the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley declares that regime change in Syria is no longer a priority to the U.S. government.
- U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says that fate of Bashar al-Assad should be determined by Syrian people.
Tuesday, April 4th: Syrian Village Attacked With Chemical Weapons
- 69 civilians are killed in a chemical weapon attack on a rebel-held village.
- All fingers point to Bashar al-Assad being behind the attack, but Syrian officials and their Russian allies blame the rebels and demand a full investigation.
Thursday, April 6th: Trump Authorizes Missile Strike on Syrian Airbase
- Earlier in the day, President Trump tells press his attitude towards Assad and Syria had changed, attack had crossed “many, many lines.”
- Later that evening, the President ordered a strike on the Syrian airbase suspected of being behind the chemical attack.
- President Trump was allegedly moved to action by pictures of the children killed in the attack.
Before we get to covering the myriad of angles around yesterday’s airstrike, let’s lay out the facts.
THE FACTS
What happened?
On 4 April, dramatic pictures and video of what appeared to be the aftermath of a chemical attack on Syrian civilians in the village of Khan Sheikhoun in the northern, rebel-held province of Idlib emerged on social media. According to witnesses, a toxic substance had emerged after warplanes had dropped bombs on the village early in the morning. Local officials say as many as a hundred people — many of them children- were killed.
Who did it?
The international community has blamed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the attack, but the Syrian military lay the responsibility for the incident at the feet of the rebels. For their part, the Russians say that Syrian warplanes struck a rebel storage facility that happened to contain toxic agents meant for chemical weapons.
Speaking at a press conference in the Rose Garden with Jordan’s King Abdullah on 6 April, President Trump told the press that the chemical weapons attack the day before had “[crossed] many, many lines” and that his personal attitude towards Syria and its leader had “changed very much.” Incidentally, the comments came just days after the White House said that the U.S. was no longer interested in removing Assad from power and that it should be the Syrian people that decide his fate.
Fast forward to Friday, April 6th, when U.S. President Donald Trump authorized a military strike in retaliation for the use of chemical weapons, allegedly having been moved to action by the pictures of children that died from the Sarin gas. This was the United States’ first action taken directly against Bashar al-Assad since the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, involved 59 Tomahawk missiles fired from a U.S. Navy vessel in the Mediterranean Sea. The missiles targeted a Syrian airbase south of the village that U.S. officials suspect served as the origin for the warplanes that allegedly dropped the chemical weapons.
A mere hour after Chinese Premier Xi Jinping left his summit with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Trump spoke about the missile strike, saying that it had been in the “vital national security interest of the United States” and invoked the children, women, and men who perished. It is also important to mention that the military action ordered by Trump did not receive congressional approval.
BREAKING BAD
According to the United States, the Syrian government first began stockpiling chemical weapons in the early 1970s when it received some chemicals and delivery systems from Egypt. In the 1980s, presumably with help from the Soviet Union, Syria began acquiring the skills and material needed to start their own production of chemical weapons. Prior to the start of the Syrian Civil War, the Assad regime was believed to be in possession of over 1,000 tons of chemical agents.
Chemical weapons are considered a weapon of mass destruction and banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention. Despite the removal of over 1,300 tons of chemicals in 2014, however, how is it possible that Bashar al-Assad was able to launch another chemical attack? Sarin, the chemical weapon used in the attack this past week, is as easy to produce as it is deadly. Not to mention that finding it is painstaking work.
Another chemical, chlorine, has been weaponized by Assad’s forces. And while stockpiling chlorine is perfectly legal due to its industrial uses, it also compounds the threat posed to Syrian civilians by chemical weapons.
HISTORY BLURS LINES
Trump’s comments on 7 April about “many, many lines” recalled memories of what former President Barack Obama said in 2012 regarding the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime. Then-President Obama told the world that Assad using chemical weapons in his fight to remain in power would be a red line for his administration and were it to be crossed, it would “change [his] calculus,” seemingly implying military action.
Nearly a year to the day after this proclamation, the Syrian military killed nearly 1,500 civilians during a massive chemical weapons strike on 21 August 2013. This was an obvious transgression over the infamous “red line,” so President Obama announced to the American people that the U.S. should act against Syria, and that he’d be seeking Congressional approval for any military action.
In what would become one of the most infamous and controversial chapters of Obama’s foreign policy, the United States ultimately never took action against Bashar al-Assad. With the British Parliament voting against military action and the increasing prospect of the same occurring in Congress, President Obama accepted an offer from Russian leader and Assad ally Vladimir Putin to work together to remove 1,300 tons of chemical weapons from Syria and dismantle Assad’s previously undisclosed chemical weapons program.
GHOSTS OF TWITTER PAST
One of President Trump’s first comments regarding the chemical weapons attack on 6 April was to blame former President Obama for drawing his “red line” and then failing to intervene aggressively when it was crossed. However, these comments ignore President Trump’s own comments and opinions on the matter in 2013.
In several tweets sent out throughout 2013 and 2014, then-businessman Donald Trump implored President Obama to avoid involvement in Syria, military or otherwise, seeing as how it was not in the interest of the United States and should instead focus on domestic issues. Then, during the 2016 presidential campaign, candidate Donald Trump maintained his non-interventionist by stating that the U.S. should let Syria and Russia fight ISIS. He even went against what his then-running mate Mike Pence said about Syria and criticized Hillary Clinton’s calls for a no-fly zone.
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
Congress
The reactions and comments from members of Congress ran the gamut from full support to harsh criticism. Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, two of the Senate’s biggest hawks and two of the President’s most outspoken critics, praised him for finally taking action in Syria. Senator Ted Cruz, Trump’s toughest opponent during the divisive 2016 GOP primaries, issued a vague statement about military actions in Syria needing to be in the interest of national security. And Senator Rand Paul, who has libertarian leanings, criticized the strike because the President had failed to obtain authorization from Congress.
Across the aisle, Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin seemed to support the move, while criticizing the lack of consultation with Congress beforehand. Other Democrats such as Tim Kaine and Elizabeth Warren were indignant about the unconstitutionality of military action. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who served in the military and met with Bashar al-Assad in Syria, had the strongest condemnation to Trump’s decision, saying that U.S. involvement in the country could lead to “a possible nuclear war between the United States and Russia.”
Media
Outside of Washington, D.C., President Trump’s own supporters appeared to also be displeased by the decision. InfoWars contributor Paul Joseph Watson tweeted that he was “officially OFF the Trump train” and referred to him as a neoconservative puppet. Other Trump supporters like Mike Cernovich, radio host Laura Ingraham, and author Ann Coulter appeared to call out Trump for reversing his campaign promises.
Internet
Elsewhere on the Internet, in places like Breitbart and Reddit, Trump supports also showed a range of emotions. Some Trump supporters expressed their support for the military strike, saying that this was Trump showing the world that America was not weak and that this would make Assad think twice about using chemical weapons in the future. Other Trump supporters were skeptical, either because they had taken a wait and see approach or because they believe the chemical weapons attack prompting action was a false flag meant to lure the U.S. into a war.
The Rest of the World
Surprising no one, the Russian government was quick to condemn the strike, calling it a violation of international law. The Chinese issued a more muted response, denouncing the use of chemical weapons and stressing the importance of preventing the situation from deteriorating further. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for sanctions against the Assad regime and for efforts to be spent on finding a political solution.
GOING FORWARD
It is too early to tell what will end up happening in Syria as a result of the President’s rapid about-face. The Pentagon has not said whether this was a one-off strike or if there would be more; nor has the President laid out any strategy or objectives regarding Syria. What we do now is that the village of Khan Sheikhoun, site of the chemical attack that prompted the military strike, has already been attacked again, Russia has already pledged to help the Syrian military strengthen its anti-air defenses, and the United States is looking into whether or not Russians played in the aforementioned chemical weapons attack.
What will Russia do?
Complicating the matter further is the ongoing presence of Russian troops in Syria. In fact, the airbase that was struck by the Tomahawk missiles had Russian soldiers present, although Moscow was notified of the incoming strikes. However, there are signs that Russia’s support for Bashar al-Assad could be wavering. After news broke of the chemical attack, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said Russian support for Assad was “not unconditional.” However, during a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Putin also called for a “detailed and unbiased investigation.”
For Putin, incentives to continue to support Assad are in no short supply. For starters, Syria is home to Russia’s only base in the Mediterranean and Bashar al-Assad is the only remaining ally that Putin has in the Middle East. The conflict in Syria also provides Putin with the ability to kill two birds with one stone: combat Islamist extremists and showcase his military’s newest weaponry to the world.
Mission Creep
For now, the biggest concern is “mission creep,” a military colloquialism for the gradual shift in objectives during a military campaign which may result in unintentional long-term commitment. The U.S. initially began with airstrikes just on ISIS targets in Iraq in August 2014, then began targeting the group in Syria the following month. Then it sent a small contingent of U.S. troops to Syria to assist the rebels last month. And now the U.S. has escalated to directly attacking the Syrian government.
If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve seen this movie before. What started off with the arrival of U.S. military advisors ended in over 50,000 dead American servicemen in the jungles of Vietnam.
