Trump Tears Up Obama’s Half-Assad PolicyAmerican Spectator, Apr 7, 2017, George Neumayr
As the crisis in Syria deepened, Barack Obama pursued a policy of all talk and no action. President Trump’s policy can be described as no talk and then action.
Once again defying convention, Trump struck Syria decisively on Thursday, throwing Dems who have been caricaturing him as a puppet of Putin into a state of perplexity. Where Obama famously “led from behind” — a rhetorical nod to his feckless and slavish regard for “international consensus” — Trump’s strike sends the signal to world leaders, including the Chinese premier with whom he is now meeting, that he takes his cues from nobody.
What’s likely to happen now is that Putin will follow Trump in finding a resolution to the crisis. Russia grumbled about Trump’s strike, but not as loudly as one might have expected. Both Trump and Putin appear already in agreement on one point: that a post-Assad future can’t involve any slackening in the war on ISIS or give an opening to Islamic radicals.
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Meanwhile, Ted Cruz welcomed the strike as end to an era of “Obama foreign policy failures,” even as he stressed that any further action “be justified as protecting the vital national security interests of America – including decisive action to prevent chemical weapons from falling into the hands of radical Islamic terrorists.”
This much is clear: Gone is the half-Assad policy of Obama for whom the rhetoric of “red lines” served as a substitute for enforcing them. Trump’s pragmatic approach is the exact reverse: speak less and strike more.
More:
https://spectator.org/trump-tears-up-obamas-half-assad-policy/
