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Donald Trump has said all manner of contradictory things about Syria and unilateral airstrikes. He said Obama shouldn’t attack in 2013 and insisted he needed congressional authorization to do so. Now he is contradicting both points. But whether or not Trump is hypocritical is not a terribly important point at the moment. Whether he’s changed his position isn’t that important. But the rapidity and totality with which he’s done so is important. There are compelling arguments on both sides of the intervention question. But impulsive, reactive, unconsidered actions seldom generate happy results.
As you’ve likely already seen, the US tonight launched a significant aerial attack on targets in Syria. The AP reports that about 60 Tomahawk missiles fired from warships in the Mediterranean Sea struck a Syrian air force base.
A key question will be the fate of Russian military and/or civilian personnel in Syria, which have become closely integrated with Syrian regime military personnel in recent years. Obviously Russian lives are no more important than Syrian lives. But the geopolitical consequences of Russian casualties or fatalities could be severe.
Every ‘chemical weapons are horrible, but …’ post is perilous and difficult to write. But there are some important points to be discussed here. President Trump has spent two years arguing that Syria is not our fight. We don’t really care about human rights issues in Syria or who runs Syria. We care about ISIS. Days ago his Secretary of State said whether Bashar Assad stays in power isn’t our concern. Now we’re talking about military action and ousting him from power.
Chemical weapons are horrible. Most ways that civilians die in war are horrible. Yet we have legitimate, important reasons for creating norms that prevent the use of certain classes of weapons. Chemical weapons are high on that list. But if the events of the last few days take you from “hands off, not our problem” to “Assad needs to go” it’s hard to come to any other conclusion than that you simply weren’t paying attention until now.
Well, not just un-masking but that’s part of the discussion. In Episode #15 of The Josh Marshall Show I talk to Brookings Institution Fellow Susan Hennessey. Susan is the Managing Editor of the must-read national security Lawfare blog as well as a former Intelligence Community lawyer who worked at the National Security Agency.
The Trump/Russia story has pushed to the center of the news a whole series of questions and practices about how intelligence collection works, what’s legal, what’s not and a lot more. These are technicalities that many of us just don’t know that much about. But they’ve become increasingly important for understanding what the stories we’re reading mean. That is why I was so excited to talk to Susan for Episode 15 of The Josh Marshall Show. Listen right here and let us know what you think.
President Trump a few moments ago when asked about a potential staff shakeup: “I think we’ve had one of the most successful 13 weeks in the history of the presidency.”
Rosland Capital, the company that will sell you gold to store in your home safe for the apocalypse and//or race war has decided to remain as an advertiser with Bill O’Reilly.
Since we’re now on the precipice, my argument: The Dems are right to filibuster, nuclear option or not. Let it happen.