SYRIA ATTACK :TRUMP CHANGES HISTORY OF FIRST 100 DAYS?

My take on the Trump strikes in Syria.

It remains unclear who was responsible for the release of the toxic gases which horribly killed and sickened women and children and others in Idlib Province, Syria. If the US has any "incontrovertible" evidence regarding who perpetrated this tragedy, they have not released it. Both Assad and Putin adamantly claim that they were not responsible and are calling for an impartial investigation. The world media and government agencies also seem unsure as to whom to blame. But whomever was responsible, matters no longer. Trump acted ---seemingly precipitately---and changed the entire story.line here at home, where Trump's Syrian military actions were intended to play out.

My thoughts? When the story about the gas attack hit the TV screens and media outlets in the White House---the Trump team saw an opportunity. It was a political opportunity that could change the course of the first 100 days of the Trump Presidency. It did not matter to them that so little time had elapsed between the event and the proposed military response or that Assad had not been conclusively fingered as the perpetrator. The Trump White House took what was offered from politically astute Syrian insurgents and ran with it. In a few hours after the TV pictures were aired Trump gave the order for the launch of a cluster of cruise missels and changed the uneven history of his first 100 days.

Why did Trump act? As with many of our past Presidents--and their motives for military actions abroad--who were often (too often) driven not by sound logic, or diplomacy but by the imperatives of domestic politics. What were the domestic motives which drove Trump? The prime motive was to undermine the politically devastating "Russian connection" story-line that the Democrats had been playing so effectively since Mr. Trump was elected. How could reasonable Democrats continue with the Russia story when Trump is seen actively pummmeling Putin's chief ally in the Middle East? Another motive was to boost Trump's sagging poll numbers and establish Turmp's bona fides as a :"no nonsense" leader. The attack would also burnish Trump's reputtiaon for acting decisively (some would say precipitously) when he set down his own chemical weapons "red line". Unlike Obama, whom at every opportunity Trump continues to remind us all that Obama backed off his threat of military response in similar circumstances, Perhaps most importantly the US strikes in Syria would "send a clear message" to North Korea's belligerent young leader-- Kim Joung-un. The fifty or sixty cruise missels which rained down on the air strip in western Syria could just as easily be directed (with devastating effect) on the young leader's compound...putting an end to his penchant for threatening our allies by miniturizing nuclear munitions to fit to his long-range ballistic missels. And yes! The Trump team could even blame the Obama Administration, (and that mendicant Susan Rice) for lying to us about the deal to remove "all" of the Sarin gas from Assad's coffers in 2013.

What matters now is what happens next. Does Trump abandon his popular "America First" rallying cry and fall in line with the neo-cons, militarists, and "establishment" in Washington? There were the very policies held by Trump's opponents which were defeated in the nomination campaign. Does he get entangled in regime change and nation building? Does he take up costly nation building like that which we continue to pay for in Iraq and Afghansitan, which we pay for dearly but returns little to the vast majority of our people? If he does, he is toast in 2020,