Big Questions After Syria Strike

[struggle4progress]

APR 7 2017, 8:56 AM ET
by CHUCK TODD, MARK MURRAY and CARRIE DANN

... What's .. ultimate goal in Syria? ... Trump said it is in the "vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons." And he urged the international community to work "to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria." But was Trump's military action about beginning the removal of Bashar al-Assad — something Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson alluded to yesterday before the strike? Was it mainly a strategic move to begin dismantling Assad's ability to use chemical weapons? ...

What's .. message to the world? ... Trump's decision certainly sends a message about how he'll handle international affairs — but what is it, exactly? Is his message mainly directed at Russia (which last night called the U.S. action "an aggression against a sovereign country&quot ? Is it intended to show our allies that the United States will step up its game if they do more as well? Is it aimed broadly at all U.S. enemies to highlight how Trump's style differs from his predecessor's? Keep in mind: This was all playing out as Trump was hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping ...

How will Trump sell the strike to his base? It wasn't that long ago that Trump's fans were nodding along with his warnings that military action in Syria could prompt "World War III" ...

How does Trump sell the strike to the public at large? ... The American public has never had much of an appetite for this conflict. Back in 2013, when Obama was mulling a Syria strike after an even more devastating chemical attack, just 24 percent said military action in Syria was in America's national interest, while 47 percent said it was not ... Obama's Syria moment came at a pretty low point for his approval rating (45 percent approve/ 50 percent disapprove), and Trump is even more underwater than that now ...

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/four-big-questions-after-trump-s-syria-strike-n743761

[L. Coyote]

1. Trump said "vital national security interest" to circumvent the Constitution.

The only thing he destroyed was the rule of law. And he knows it all too well:

Authorization for Military Force Against Syria to Respond to Use of Chemical Weapons

Link to tweet

[MedusaX]

2. This was a test...

45 could not strategically plan his way out of a wet paper bag...

Nor would he even know that there is specific verbiage which can be used to create the appearance of acting lawfully......
Much less know where to find it and then successfully incorporate it into a coherent statement.

So, someone brought this little media distraction to him ... all wrapped up with a bow and
sold it to him as a cure all for the presidential dysfunction syndrome he is currently experiencing.

Whoever put the package together did so as a way to ascertain just how much resistance there would be to the
implementation of a military operation
which is authorized only by 45 --
without identifying any act, policy, or precedent which definitively establishes his power to independently authorize &/or carry out such actions.

As it has turned out, the overwhelming lack of resistance, to the legal/ procedural/ authority aspects of the operation, has now essentially established a precedent which can be referenced as justification for future instances in which 45 chooses to independently authorize military operations without meeting the legal standards required.