President Trump has ordered the launching of nearly 60 missiles on select targets in Syria.<\/p>\n
His most tireless critics are now singing his praises.<\/p>\n
Along with Trump himself, they reason that Syria\u2019s Bashar al-Assad is a ruthless dictator who has used chemical weapons on his own people, including women, children, and babies.\u00a0 He is a gross human rights violator who had been permitted to cross with impunity President Obama\u2019s \u201cred line\u201d one too many times.\u00a0 President Trump had to send an unmistakable message that the United States was under new management and would no longer tolerate such egregious abuses\u2014from anyone. <\/em><\/p>\n And there is no doubt that Trump\u2019s decision is not without its political advantages.<\/p>\n First, Trump\u2019s action is already being hailed by countries, including Middle Eastern, Islamic countries, around the world.<\/p>\n Second, it is being hailed by many Democrats and Republicans alike.<\/p>\n Third, Trump\u2019s immediate, forceful response stands in glaring contrast to the non-response of Obama after the latter drew a \u201cred line\u201d <\/em>that Assad was alleged to have crossed in unleashing chemical weapons on civilians.\u00a0 The impression that will not be lost upon scores of Americans is twofold: (1) The mess in Syria is a legacy of Obama\u2019s presidency, a mess that he lacked the fortitude to prevent and\/or rectify; and (2) Trump does have the strength to address it.<\/p>\n Fourth, the whole \u201cTrump-is-a-Puppet-of-Putin\u201d narrative that Hillary Clinton first launched during one of her debates with Trump may have finally (at long last) been put out to pasture. Given that Putin is not at all pleased with the President\u2019s decision to target his ally, and in light of the fact that it was Obama<\/em>, a Democrat, who did Putin\u2019s bidding by refusing to follow through with his threat to Assad, the Democrats\u2019 conspiracy theory regarding an alleged Trump\/Putin tie is more than a bit difficult to sustain.<\/p>\n But while there are clear advantages to bombing Syria, there are potential disadvantages as well, for there is no small number of libertarians and classical conservatives who voted for him precisely because of his repudiation of the neoconservative\/neoliberal, Republican\/Democrat globalist vision that has informed foreign policy for decades.\u00a0 There are at least six arguments that have been made against this exercise in military interventionism.<\/p>\n First, it is unclear and, in fact, quite questionable that Assad did in fact do that of which he\u2019s being accused.\u00a0 Why, the skeptics ask, would this Westernized, secular leader resort to this brutality when he would have surely known that it would invite universal condemnation?\u00a0 Strategically, on Assad\u2019s part, the poisoning of the most innocent and vulnerable of Syrians is a no-brainer of the first order.<\/p>\n Second, on the other hand, the \u201crebels\u201d that the United States government has been backing<\/em> would indeed have had an incentive in doing this deed and framing Assad for it.<\/p>\n Third, in 2013 when Obama was contemplating using the military against Assad, Trump fired off multiple tweets imploring the President to concentrate his energies on advancing the national interest by, among other things, ignoring<\/em> Syria.\u00a0 Assad was accused then, as now, of deploying chemical agents against his fellow Syrians.\u00a0 Yet Trump insisted, as did many of those who would eventually vote for him, that Syria posed no threat to the United States.<\/p>\n Fourth, Trump\u2019s attack on Syrian targets promises to exacerbate tensions with the second most heavily nuclear-armed power on the planet (Russia) and an ally of Assad\u2019s.<\/p>\n Fifth, Assad, along with Putin, has been busy fighting ISIS.\u00a0 If, as Trump has assured us, the key objective is to destroy ISIS, then in bombing Assad, the President has just risked alienating allies in the fight against Islamic terrorism.<\/p>\n Finally, Trump acted unilaterally inasmuch as he never consulted Congress, a step that, Constitutionally-speaking, he is required to take before using military force.<\/p>\n The critics are correct.<\/p>\n Trump has conducted himself on this score both recklessly and, to be truthful, hypocritically.\u00a0 As was just noted, this is not the first time that Assad had been accused of utilizing chemical weapons on civilians.\u00a0 Obama faced a situation virtually identical to that which occurred a few days ago and yet, rightly, Trump informed him that the sort of globalist engineering that Obama had been engaged in was ultimately bad for America.<\/p>\n But now Trump goes and does exactly what he castigated Obama for considering.<\/p>\n And with this single action, Trump undermined most of what he had been saying about American foreign policy all throughout his presidential campaign, a message that distinguished him from almost all of his competitors in the GOP primary contest.<\/p>\n This being said, I don\u2019t relate with many of the Deplorables who are now expressing disappointment, shock, and betrayal over Trump\u2019s latest action.\u00a0 For nearly two years, I have been among those who have written tirelessly in support of the Trump candidacy <\/em>or \u201cthe Trump process<\/em>,\u201d as Ilana Mercer describes it.\u00a0 As for Trump the man or the politician, a few of us have always known\u2014and have written as much\u2014that his instincts for most of his adult life have been what we\u2019d expect from a person with \u201cNew York values<\/a>,\u201d as Ted Cruz once correctly remarked.<\/p>\n While it is true that some of what Trump said many of us liked to hear, it is equally true that, ultimately, we voted for him for reasons having little to nothing to do with his positions on any of the issues to which he spoke.\u00a0 Nor did we vote for him because of the Supreme Court or even because we found Trump preferable to the alternative.<\/p>\n