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World News See other World News Articles Title: ‘Big price to payÂ’: Inside TrumpÂ’s decision to bomb Syria ‘Big price to pay’: Inside Trump’s decision to bomb Syria Philip Rucker, Missy Ryan, Josh Dawsey, Anne Gearan 10 hrs ago Analysis: Syrians Face Hard Lesson. Assad Can Still Gas His Own People From the moment White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly first informed him late on the night of April 7 that dozens of people in a leafy suburb of Damascus had died choking and foaming at the mouth from another suspected gas attack, President Trump was determined to strike back in Syria. For him, the only question was how. This was a sudden change of tune for a president who only a few days earlier had said he wanted to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria’s intractable war and, as he put it at an event in Ohio, “let other people take care of it now.” But the images of last weekend’s atrocities haunted Trump, White House officials said, triggering six straight days of tense deliberations with his newly reorganized national security team — as well as coalition partners from France and the United Kingdom — over military options to retaliate against the alleged perpetrator he derided as “Animal Assad.” The result was 105 missiles raining down on three of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons facilities Friday night. The morning after, Trump tweeted — perhaps fatefully, considering President George W. Bush’s premature declaration of victory in Iraq — “Mission Accomplished!” Even with Trump’s jubilant response to the strikes, several advisers close to the president said they had no indication there was a long-term strategy for the region — and he seems essentially in the same position now as he was after last April’s attack on Syria. The missile strikes Friday night came at an especially traumatic moment. The commander in chief was increasingly agitated over the past week as legal and personal crises converged around him, exhibiting flashes of raw anger, letting off steam on Twitter and sometimes seeming distracted from his war planning. As the military brass put together the final details on the Syria strike plan, for instance, Trump was following the New York court proceedings involving his personal lawyer Michael Cohen and was fixated on media coverage of fired FBI director James B. Comey’s new memoir. The book paints a scathing portrait of the president’s conduct in office and character, and Trump was personally involved Friday in drafting the scorching statement attacking Comey that White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders read from her podium Friday, according to a senior administration official. Friday’s surgical strikes were more restrained than the images Trump tried to conjure with his bellicose tweets previewing the action. Last Sunday, he warned Assad and his government’s backers, Russia and Iran: “Big price to pay.” On Wednesday, he wrote that missiles “will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’ ” But in closed-door national security meetings, the tone from top officials was decidedly more nuanced. Hanging over the discussions was concern that a U.S. attack in Syria might provoke a conflict with Russia, which had threatened to retaliate. John R. Bolton and woman posing for a picture 4/4 SLIDES © Provided by WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post The absence of a clear strategy in Syria complicated the discussions. Trump had campaigned as a noninterventionist and vowed to withdraw from Middle East entanglements that he decried as costing American lives and treasure. And yet to Trump’s national security team, action of some kind seemed to be a requirement, as officials said they listened to the president deride his predecessor, Barack Obama, for sometimes discussing possible military action and then not delivering it. At a White House dinner last Tuesday, Trump opined that the problems in Syria were caused “because Obama did not enforce his red lines,” according to one attendee, Alan Dershowitz, a retired Harvard Law School professor. Trump was insistent that the strikes impair the production of chemical weapons in Syria, and hoped that would prevent Assad from launching future attacks on his population, according to White House officials. He wanted to inflict more damage than the largely symbolic air assault he ordered in 2017 on a Syrian airfield, which Assad’s forces quickly repaired. After the attack, military officials took pains to present Friday’s operation as larger than the last time, emphasizing that the number of munitions used was roughly double. As Trump said Friday night in announcing the strikes from the Diplomatic Room of the White House, “The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread and use of chemical weapons.” But as final options were presented, Trump was concerned about U.S. missiles harming civilians. When chemical weapons storage and research facilities were established as the targets, officials said, Trump sought assurances that hitting stockpiles would not let off plumes that could injure or kill people who lived nearby. Military officials said Saturday that they believe that no one — not even Syrian government personnel — was killed in the attack, which struck nonresidential facilities in the middle of the night. Although options for more-expansive actions were also discussed, the plan that Trump ultimately endorsed, with a mix of air- and sea-launched missiles and sophisticated standoff airstrikes, was designed to minimize risk to U.S. and allied personnel and lessen the chances of unwanted escalation, officials said. National security adviser John Bolton, in his first week on the job, was a hawkish voice urging a meaningful show of force that would deter Assad. Trump also heard from some hawks on Capitol Hill, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who said he urged the president to forgo his plan to pull back troop levels in Syria. “I fear when the dust settles, this strike will be seen as a weak military response and Assad will have paid a small price for using chemicals yet again,” Graham said. Trump was characteristically impatient and wanted the military to take action quickly, officials said, but Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, steered a more deliberative and careful process. Mattis and Dunford articulated to Trump the risks involved with operating in Syria, including the possibility of escalation with Russia and Iran, or an unintended event that might drag the United States further into Syria’s war, officials said. “We were not out to expand this,” Mattis told reporters just after the attack. “We were very precise and proportionate.” Poster Comment: Video at source. With the Uber-Neocon and war hawk John Bolton in charge as National Security Adviser, Trump faces an awesome challenge to sort out fact from fiction and prevent escalation of events in the Middle East. ;) Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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