Dangerous Syria Attack
By Robert Dreyfuss
9 hours ago
... it could be the first shot in a cascading series of military actions – including the creation of refugee safe zones, no-fly zones aimed at grounding Syrian and Russian air forces, and direct attacks on Syria's main military units – that might trigger what, until this week, seemed unthinkable: a direct U.S.-Russian military showdown ...
... the strikes ... won't change the balance of forces in Syria’s civil war, which .. has essentially been won by Damascus. They won't deter either Moscow or Tehran from backing .. al-Assad's government ... And they won't .. put much of a dent in Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons or its ability to deliver them ...
Because war is unpredictable ... it isn't clear how Syria, Russia and Iran will respond. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, condemned the U.S. action as an "act of aggression," and the Russians suspended a crucial 2015 agreement that facilitated contacts between U.S. and Russian military commanders to prevent accidental encounters between the two countries' air forces.
Trump, his administration in shambles and plagued by a political knife-fight involving his own White House staff, probably calculated that he'd benefit from the rally-round-the-flag phenomenon that accompanies U.S. military action. And, indeed, he's won plaudits across the political spectrum ...
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/trumps-dangerous-syria-attack-w475655
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