The Perfect Strike
With Democrats feverishly and desperately trying to find anything and everything to explain away Hillary Clinton’s defeat last November, they pray that somehow they can prove that Donald Trump was in collusion with the Russian government to deny her the election she supposedly had all locked up…
…and his answer?
Nothing short of responding to Vladimir Putin in a way never even considered under any of the last four administrations- both Bushes’, Clinton’s and Obama’s- much less acted upon. Any thought that Donald Trump was going to appease Russia’s president, has gone the way of fifty-nine Tomahawk cruise missiles. It’s now going to be that much more difficult for Democrats to allege that Trump is merely Putin’s lap dog, eager to do his bidding on the world stage.
Last week’s missile strike on Syria’s Shayrat air base, from which fixed wing aircraft were launched on orders of Bashir al-Assad, on April 4th and then dropped sarin gas upon civilians in Khan Shaykun, a small town in northwestern Syria, surprised and shocked the watching world. Syria’s gas attack took the lives of over one hundred, many of whom were infants and small children. The barbarity of this attack was enough to prompt President Trump to quickly and ably retaliate with the go-ahead to launch the missiles from two U.S. Navy destroyers- all within seventy-two hours of the gas attack.
Unlike Obama, who would have dithered in response to the use of Syria’s chemical weapons (chemical weapons that they falsely and repeatedly claimed had been disposed of years ago, and as recently as January of this year, by Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, who reasserted this false claim) by submitting position papers of protest to the United Nations, which would have resulted in more meaningless claptrap, and who would have again waited for Congress to grant approval, President Trump would have none of that. He acted- quickly, resolutely and decisively with a perfectly-measured missile strike- one with more meaning than with actual brute force.
For starters, President Trump showed that he is a forceful commander-in-chief who will instantly respond to such situations that may arise, and without hesitancy, delay and advanced notice to our adversaries- something he repeatedly promised during his presidential campaign. Having given Russian military commanders in Syria an hour’s advanced notice of the missile launch, he took the moment to inform visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping during their farewell dinner, of the attack in a deft move to also convey a similar message to the Chinese- that the days of dithering on the part of his predecessor are done. He followed up on this message to the Chinese leader with the deployment of a western-Pacific aircraft carrier group, now headed towards the Korean peninsula, and assured them that the United States is prepared to take military action against North Korea, should the Chinese fail to hem in the provocative actions of North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un. For his own part, the North Korean dictator now has reason to believe that there is an unpredictable, and unintimidated U.S. president who will do that which his predecessors were afraid to do- be willing to launch a strike against his strategic missile launch site- located a mere thirty miles north of South Korea’s capital in Seoul.
Secondly, President Trump has shown his willingness to reposition and refocus his own strategy, based upon contingencies as they arise. During the campaign, and in the years before, it was Trump who indicated that the United States should avoid entanglement in Syria, specifically, and in other Middle Eastern hot spots where U.S. interests are not specifically at risk. Regardless, he has shown that he has a sense of noblesse oblige on the part of the United States to respond at any moment when such “red lines” are crossed and WMDs are visited upon innocent lives. While some purists in the halls of Congress thump their chests about the legality of Trump to launch such strikes without prior congressional approval, many of the anti-Trump forces, in both the Democrat and Republican caucuses, and even a few of the players in the Obama administration, are actually praising Trump for the decisive and effective manner in which he responded to Syria’s assault against their own citizens.
Thirdly, Trump has effectively enabled Vladimir Putin to paint himself into a corner of having to defend the indefensible- including a “rogues’ gallery” of Russia’s own allies- totalitarian states like Syria and Iran, not to mention bad actors like Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations. Russia’s return to the Middle East, enabled by the Obama administration’s limp-wristed and ineffective foreign policy following thirty years of Russia’s absence in that region, hinges on their ability to maintain air bases in Syria and a naval presence in the Syrian port of Tartus. In response, both Russia and Iran may rattle their sabers and shake their fists with threats of retaliation against the U.S., but they must also realize that Trump is no fading flower of fecklessness like so many of his predecessors, and that provoking a President Trump might well result in their own undoing.
Essentially, this single, solitary missile strike was perfect- perfect in its scope and its rapidity, and perfect in its precision and effectiveness. That the Trump administration has now left the door open to further action if deemed necessary, just as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sits down with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for the first time, also sends a strong message to all of the bad actors in a treacherous world, that the days of American acquiescence have come to an end.
More importantly, the Trump doctrine of “America, First” in its foreign policy not only pursues the greater interests of the United States, first, but also is one that asserts American leadership on the international front- a sense of leadership long-lacking and, now, richly reasserted.
-Drew Nickell, 11 April 2017
© 2017 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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