US attack on Syria shows Trump lacks coherent foreign policy, experts say

The US missile strikes against a Syrian airfield this week mark a stark shift in American strategy towards Damascus and shows the lack of any coherent foreign policy by the administration of President Donald Trump, according to international relations experts.

The US strikes against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad indicated a U-turn from the statements expressed by the administration of former President Barack Obama, as well as the Trump administration.

Last week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said that the White House would not try to remove Assad from power.

“Just last week, senior officials were talking about coming to terms with Assad and legitimizing Assad,” said Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy. “It is concerning that Trump’s approach to Syria and maybe to foreign policy writ large is completely incoherent.”

“He doesn’t have a strategic vision about foreign policy,” said James Joyner, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

During his presidential election campaign, Trump had indicated that he would be less willing than some of his predecessors to conduct military operations against other countries.

In 2013, as a businessman, Trump advised Obama not to strike Syria after a sarin gas attack near Damascus was reported.

“President Obama, Do NOT  attack Syria, fix USA,” Trump said on Twitter in September 2013. “There is no upside and tremendous downside. Save your ‘powder’ for another (and more important) day!”

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As a presidential candidate last year, Trump criticized Obama and Hillary Clinton, the former US secretary of state during Obama’s first term and Trump’s opponent in the election, for getting involved in foreign conflicts and waging wars in other countries.

“The legacy of the Obama-Clinton interventions will be weakness, confusion and disarray, a mess. We’ve made the Middle East more unstable and chaotic than ever before,” Trump said during a major foreign policy speech in April 2016.

No sympathy for Syrian victims 

Upon Trump's order, the US military launched 59 Tomahawk missiles against several targets on al-Shayrat airfield in Homs province in the early hours of Friday. 

Trump said the operation was in response to a chemical attack in Idlib province. The Syrian government has strongly denied responsibility for that attack.

Foreign policy experts, however, say it is unlikely Trump ordered the strikes based on his sympathy for the Syrian victims, given his indifference to human rights violations in the US and around the world.

The experts said the US bombing deflects attention from the president’s growing list of problems at home, from the investigation of his campaign’s alleged ties with Russia to his failed healthcare legislation and blocked travel ban.

Trump acted without proof 

Hans Blix, a former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency who was also a prominent weapons inspector at the UN, told Germany’s Deutsche Welle that the Trump administration made the decision to launch the strikes unilaterally and without making a legal case that they were justified.

"I don't know whether in Washington they presented any evidence, but I did not see that in the Security Council," the Swedish diplomat said. "Merely pictures of victims that were held up, that the whole world can see with horror, such pictures are not necessarily evidence of who did it."

Members of the US Congress from both major political parties have demanded that Trump develop a broader strategy for dealing with the Syria conflict and consult with lawmakers on any military action.

"We ... need a strategy to figure out what is our goals in Syria," said Republican Senator John Cornyn. "Is our goal just to defeat [ISIL] or is our goal to change the regime, and if there is policy to change the regime what comes next?"

Most lawmakers insisted that Trump should seek Congress' approval for any additional military action.

"Congress must live up to its constitutional responsibility to debate an Authorization of the Use of Military Force against a sovereign nation," House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote in a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan .

Wake-up call for Trump supporters 

Some of Trump’s far-right backers also rebelled Friday after the president ordered the military strike.

Leaders of the "Alt-Right" white nationalist movement criticized Trump for abandoning his election campaign promises.

"Anyone who claimed Trump had blind loyalty had a wake-up call today," Mike Cernovich, one of the movement's leaders, told AFP.

While some questioned whether any chemical incident took place, others rejected the administration’s stance that President Assad ordered the attack.

Instead, they blamed anti-Assad militants for staging a false-flag attack meant to be pinned on the Syrian government.

People took to the streets in cities across the US, as well as other countries, on Friday to demonstrate against the missile strikes.

Protesters in New York City, Philadelphia and Washington chanted slogans against Trump’s controversial move and showed their support for the Syrian people.

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