Trump's Syria approach deserves accolades | Malik

Siddique Malik

Contributing Columnist

Thursday night's U.S. missile attack on Syria's Shayrat military base is significant in terms of foreign policy and diplomacy. But its exact value will be determined by President Trump's follow-up actions. Was the attack a random act or a part of a coherent strategy?

In earnest, this attack is something President Barack Obama should have done when Syria's murderous dictator, Bashar al-Assad, crossed the red line Obama had set and attacked his people with chemical weapons. Obama's ignoring the line emboldened the dictator.

Assad increased his brutality towards Syrians, forcing many of them to flee homes and thus triggering a major refugee crisis. The situation destabilized the region, financially and politically stressed Europe, possibly contributed to Brexit, weakened the EU, and made Russia claim leadership of the Syria riddle. Until then, Russia had stayed away. It did not want to wade into what everybody knew was a domain of America's leadership.

Obama's cowardice also did something else. It made him look ineffective and indecisive. So when Hillary Clinton hitched her presidential campaign to the Obama legacy, she inherited his inertia-ridden image. I am not saying that Obama should have attacked Assad because it would have helped Democrats politically. That's not how America conducts its foreign policy.

But I am saying that Clinton showed a severe lack of judgment by ignoring Obama's lackadaisical attitude toward dictators, which she had herself criticized soon after leaving the office of the Secretary of State. Therefore, I don't know if she would have shown the same decisiveness that President Trump showed toward Assad's Tuesday chemical attack on civilians. Good for the Syrian people that she is not president.

I am sure that President Trump will be criticized by Democrats, some of whom have not yet accepted the outcome of the 2016 election and illogically question Trump's legitimacy as president. They will say, he attacked Syria to divert people's attention from his party's nuking of the senatorial filibuster to send Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, or to look tough on Russia at a time when investigations of his and his associates' possible culpability in their links with Russia were underway. And so on and so forth.

I point these critics to what the then-Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, said after President Bill Clinton's 1998 futile missile attacks on Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden in the wake of al-Qaeda's attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Clinton was in the midst of independent counsel Ken Starr's investigation of the Monica Lewinsky episode. Critics said that Clinton was trying to divert people's attention from the Lewinsky issue. Cohen, a Republican, retorted that it was preposterous to think that a president could abuse the U.S. military in such a political way.

I cannot admire Trump's Thursday night attack enough. It shows that America is in charge of freedom and human rights again. His ending his statement on the attack with "God bless America and the entire world" is unique and praiseworthy.

Giving Russians an advance notice of the attack also goes to Trump's credit. As the Pentagon said, Russians almost certainly tipped Assad, giving him time to secure some of his assets. But not informing Russians would have been a violation of the terms of the hotline that exists between American and Russian air forces in the region. The situation would have turned complicated if a Russian asset was hit by some of the 59 Tomahawk missiles that U.S. naval destroyers in the Eastern Mediterranean fired at Shayrat.

When in the wee hours of April 15, 1986, President Ronald Reagan bombed Libyan military targets around Benghazi and Tripoli (I was in Benghazi that night) in response to Moammar Qaddafi's attack on a West Berlin disco frequented by American soldiers, the U.S. gave the then-Soviet Union advance notice. Libya was in the Soviet camp back then and was littered with the Soviet-supplied surface-to-air missile batteries.

But the advance notice will not stop Russians from trying to exact political and diplomatic mileage from the Shayrat attack. Already, it has disabled the hotline. Good riddance. It's calling the attack illegal. The world should seek Russian opinion on the illegality of Assad's chemical attacks on civilians. But that, of course, will not be enough to shut Russians up.

Russia will try to salvage its leadership role in Syria that Obama had handed to it on a silver platter. That's where President Trump's leadership is needed. Not only should he reclaim America's leadership in the region, he should not let Russia legitimize its incursions into Ukraine.

Of course, America should now maintain military pressure on Assad. (I am sure, North Korea's dictator is watching). The sudden shift in the Trump administration's policy on Syria that was hopelessly looking like Obama's inert approach deserves accolades. Perhaps, Obama walked away from his red line because he lacked the willpower required for persistence on tough issues.

Military potency is the backbone of a robust foreign policy and the effectiveness of the resultant diplomacy. But persistence is of the essence in this precarious triangle.

Siddique Malik claims to be a foreign policy hawk. You may contact him at smalik94@aol.com.