Lessons about Trump to be learned from his Syria Strike

Seven Lessons From Trump’s Syria Strike, The Atlantic, DAVID FRUM, 7 APR 17

The attack raises a series of questions about the president’s approach to America’s political processes and institutions. When the Electoral College elevated Donald Trump to the presidency, it conferred on him the awesome life-and-death powers that attend the office. It was inevitable that President Trump would use those powers sooner or later. Now he has. For the effects on the region, I refer you to the powerful piece by The Atlantic’s Andrew Exum. I’m concerned here with the effects on the U.S. political system. Seven seem most immediately relevant.

Trump’s Words Mean Nothing

If there was any one foreign policy position that Donald Trump stressed above all others, it was opposition to the use of force in Syria. Time has helpfully compiled Trump’s tweets on the subject dating back to 2013. For example:

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

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

10:33 AM – 16 Jun 2013

These were not the idle thoughts of a distracted mind. Promises of no war in Syria were central to Donald Trump’s anti-Hillary Clinton messaging. Take, for example, to his interview with Reuters on October 26, 2016.

“What we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria,” said Trump, as he dined on fried eggs and sausage at his Trump National Doral golf resort. “You’re going to end up in World War Three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton. You’re not fighting Syria any more, you’re fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right?”

That message—a vote for Clinton is a vote for World War III beginning in Syria—was pounded home by surrogates and by Trump’s social-media troll army.

Not even 100 days into his presidency, Trump has done exactly what he attacked Hillary Clinton for contemplating.

Some have described this reverse as “hypocritical.” This description is not accurate. A hypocrite says one thing while inwardly believing another. The situation with Donald Trump is much more alarming. On October 26, 2016, he surely meant what he said. It’s just that what he meant and said that day was no guide to what he would mean or say on October 27, 2016—much less April 6, 2017.

Voters and citizens can expect literally zero advance warning of what Donald Trump will do or won’t do. Campaign promises, solemn pledges—none are even slightly binding. If he can reverse himself on Syria, he can reverse himself on anything. ………

Trump Does Not Give Reasons

From the Declaration of Independence onward, American statesmen have felt bound to offer reasons why they did things, and most especially why they resorted to force……….

Trump Does Not Care About Legality

In August 2013, Trump insisted that President Obama needed congressional approval before striking Syria. Obama came to agree. He sought approval and was refused. No strike followed.

On what basis did Donald Trump act in 2017? President Obama rested all his many military actions throughout the greater Middle East on the September 2001 authorization by Congress:……….

Trump Disregards Government Processes

In the next hours, journalists will be told a story about the decision-making process that produced the Syria strike. The first reports are not confidence inspiring. ……..

Trump Has No Allies

In his short term in office, Trump has stumbled into quarrels with Australia, Germany, and China. The list of general gaffes and embarrassments is long and painful.

Unsurprisingly, then, he did not trouble himself to gain allies or partners before the Syria strike………

Trump Envisions No End State

“Every war must end,” according to the wise heads of foreign policy. Someday too the Syria war will end. As a candidate, Donald Trump insisted that the United States should never join a war without a clear vision of such an end. As he said in his speech to the Center for the National Interest in April 2016 (where the Russian ambassador sat in the front row untroubled by the company of any NATO ally except Italy):

I will not hesitate to deploy military force when there is no alternative. But if America fights, it must fight to win. I will never send our finest into battle unless necessary – and will only do so if we have a plan for victory.

Military force has been deployed. Whers’s the plan for victory? What’s even the definition of victory? Absent and absent. What Trump has done is the kind of military action famously derided by George W. Bush as firing a $2 million missile into a $10 tent and hitting a camel in the butt. Trump’s strike was symbolic and demonstrative, not decisive. It signaled, but did not compel. It leaves the Syrian and Russian leadership an array of options about how to respond—and it may well have committed the United States to potential next steps that the president did not imagine and does not intend.

Trump Is Lucky in His Opponents…… Trump’s action has gained support from Democrats that was never available to Obama from Republicans. In the fall of 2013, even the hawkish Marco Rubio—who had long called for action in Syria against Assad—nevertheless opposed Obama’s request for authorization to do just that…….https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/seven-lessons-from-trumps-syria-strike/522327/