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babylonsister

(171,056 posts) Sat Apr 8, 2017, 09:01 AM Apr 2017

We Are Now Part of This War

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/04/trump_doesn_t_know_what_he_wants_to_do_in_syria.html

We Are Now Part of This War

Trump doesn’t know what he wants to do in Syria. He needs to figure it out—fast.
By Phillip Carter

In March 2003, during the invasion of Iraq, then–Maj. Gen. David Petraeus turned to embedded reporter Linda Robinson and famously asked: “Tell me how this ends.”

That question has never fully been answered in Iraq, despite the expenditure of huge sums of American blood and treasure. And yet, it’s the right question to ask of any military endeavor, because it links current operations to a desired future objective, lest all that blood and treasure be wasted for war’s own sake.

The same question ought to be asked now, the day after President Donald Trump ordered cruise missiles to strike a Syrian airfield in response to the brutal killing of Syrian civilians with chemical weapons two days earlier. What comes next, and how this ultimately ends, depends on what military steps come next—by the United States, as well as the Russians, Syrians, Iranians, and others active in the region. Moreover, Thursday’s strike complicates nearly everything we are now doing in Syria, potentially setting in motion a chain reaction of conflict whose end is difficult to foresee or control.

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Thursday’s strike also upsets the uneasy détente that had grown between the U.S., Russia, and other countries operating inside Syria. This relationship had never matured to the point where U.S. and Russian forces were fighting together like they did during World War II, but at least there was the potential for further cooperation down the line. Not anymore.

Further, as noted above, the Russians’ expansive presence in Syria increases the stakes of American involvement. Indeed, Russia may decide to help its client state Syria more as the result of this airstrike, frustrating further U.S. action, particularly if such action comes to include regime change.

Before this week, the Trump administration never clearly articulated its position on whether Assad should stay or go. Assad’s barbaric murder of civilians with chemical weapons appeared to change that, although Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster stopped well short of saying they wanted immediate regime change by force. Whether the U.S. wants regime change—and how—remains the great unanswered question after Thursday’s missile strike.