Maybe the truth of the situation is something mundane, such as Assad being an a-hole, after probably being told by his Russian friends to lay low and play nice so they could build a strategic alliance with Trump, instead he turns around and does this (again) as if to say, I can do what I want, it’s my civil war, so now we’re sort of between a rock and a hard place — presumably somebody in the Administration has thought about who they would really want to see in power in Syria — if not Assad, then who?
We outside the intelligence loop find it hard to see who or what could run Syria in a less threatening way than Assad.
By this I mean, who is going to do better than Assad in fighting ISIS, protecting Christians and other religious minorities, and not being an absolute risk of regional war.
Assad has obvious flaws. But who if anybody is better?
Let’s hope that the intel on this strike is 110% sound and that Assad did in fact use chemical weapons. Whether he used them on “innocent civilians” as per the narrative du jour, or just went after one of a dozen enemies he has in this complex civil war, probably won’t be too obvious for weeks or months. All these bad actors tend to hide behind civilians, or have civilian co-conspirators.
The one thing that seems strategically smart is that this move will deflate the Russian involvement theme, or at least it should. But whether that is what we need right now remains to be seen.
In other words, wait and see. I don’t know if this is a very good move or not.
Refreshingly intelligent post.