The cruise missile attacks launched earlier the month by the U.S., France, and the UK against Syrian chemical weapons facilities elicited one of the most unfortunate Tweets from the president in a years-long string of disturbing foreign policy Tweets: "Could not have had a better result; Mission Accomplished!"
- Despite the absurd claims by Syria and Russia of their air defense prowess, the allied cruise missiles did perform flawlessly, and there was no indication that any were intercepted.
- But beyond the "Mission Accomplished" phrase, which called up all the goblins from the costly 2003 Iraq invasion, the Tweet highlighted the major flaw in U.S. policy toward Syria, stretching back long before the Trump inaugural: what exactly IS the mission?
- Or, as General David Petraeus succinctly put it a decade ago, in a slightly different context: "How Does This End?"
White House-directed policy in this region – Syria and western Iraq in particular – is not operating in a total vacuum. Recently departed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson laid out in a speech at Stanford University in January what passes for probably the best articulation of the U.S. approach; in summary, Tillerson said that the U.S. would go beyond the defeat of ISIS to countering Iranian influence through a (modest) long-term presence of U.S. forces; this includes protection of Kurdish allies and affording the newly renascent Iraq government a chance to deepen its multi-ethnic bonafides."
- The problem is that these sensible objectives have never been broadly articulated by the executive branch, nor fleshed out with the necessary details to convert the Tillerson objectives into a true strategy for the region just attacked.
- Further, as one analyst has accurately described the Trump (and Obama!) dilemma, the gap between these words and the resources – diplomatic, military, and economic – to give them real meaning is "yawning."
So, was the attack a waste of 100-plus cruise missiles? No. At least three reasons stand out for applauding the response (but not the Tweet):
- First, while nobody should have any illusions about the strike altering the military balance between Assad and the Sunni opposition, it did send an important message to Iranian and Syrian leaders bent on acquiring a chemical capability against Israel: there are limits.
- Second, the attack forced Russian and Syria into public responses about the Assad chemical weapons use that, to all except their closest allies (Iran especially), sounded completely unhinged; at least in the court of public opinion, the Syrian/Russian statements highlighted yet again the perfidy and the brutality of both the Syrian leader and his Russian patrons.
- Finally, to enhance the legitimacy of the attacks, Trump worked with allies! It was the French president who last week called the U.S. "a player of last resort for peace and multilateralism." The word "multilateralism" must have grated with the president; but in the midst of his bromance with Macron, Trump didn't show it. Further, it may be Macron who, through his concept of a multi-player "grand bargain" for Syria, begins to answer the Petraeus question.
BOTTOM LINE: Numerous studies by political scientists over the last decade on civil wars reveal that the average length of such conflicts exceeds ten years; it's longer the more numerous the contending factions, and when foreign powers intervene. In Syria's case, both realities apply. By this measure, we may be only slightly beyond the half-way point in the Syrian humanitarian nightmare.
- Richard Haass, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations, summarized well the current situation: "Syria is likely to remain a broken country for years to come. The latest strike did not change that reality."
