Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad got a surprise yesterday. He made the president of the United States visibly angry.
Trump on whether Syrian gas attack crosses a red line: “Many, many lines, beyond a red line” pic.twitter.com/dKhlEFOZwq
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) April 5, 2017
It’s a surprise, because between 2012 and 2017 President Barack Obama offered cool disdain as Assad filled civilian lungs with hydrochloric acid (chlorine) or disconnected civilian lungs from the brain (nerve gas). Those five years will haunt Obama’s museum.
The tragic tale begins in late summer 2012. Facing Assad’s repeated use of chemical weapons, Obama warned Assad: use chemical weapons again, and get ready for U.S. military reprisals. Assad ignored Obama, and in 2013, he jumped across Obama’s red-line Rubicon and gassed hundreds to death in Ghouta. Rendering tinpot Assad a Caesar, Obama blinked in the worst possible way. He directed military action against Assad, and then withdrew his order at the last minute. The French government (whose pilots were to join U.S. strikes) was appalled. They knew then what they not-so-inconspicuously broadcast in the ensuing years: Obama had burned American credibility on Assad’s death pyre.
Attempting to save face, Obama signed a Putin-brokered fake-deal (as I warned at the time) with Assad. The Syrian dictator would send his chemical weapon stocks abroad and in return, the U.S. would not bomb him. But Assad retained significant chemical weapon stocks. Worse, Obama knew this but ignored it.
Assad got the message. Since late 2013 he has gassed Syrians with impunity. Each repeated attack matched torturous deaths to new wounds against American credibility.
Fortunately, by a simple statement, President Trump has the opportunity to reconstruct that credibility. The power of their office means that by words alone, a president has the potential to generate strategic effect. But unlike many of his tweets, Trump’s reflexive words yesterday were well chosen. He did not pontificate or prevaricate. Instead, he saw Assad’s evil act and raised him with moral leadership. It is a leadership backed by the most powerful military in global history.
Be under no illusions. In Damascus, Moscow, and Tehran, foreign leaders are sitting nervous. They do not know what Trump is capable of. But Assad has challenged him to show them. Assad’s timing could not be worse. Just last week, the Trump administration turned the page on American demands that Assad step down from power. Now Trump says that he may revisit that decision. At the U.N. on Wednesday, Ambassador Nikki Haley explicitly hinted at a unilateral American military response. Incidentally, in her few weeks in office, Haley has shown more American leadership than her predecessor, Samantha stop-the-genocide-via-twitter Power, showed in four years.
Of course, Trump now faces monumental choices. He must respond to Assad. He must do so in a way that is tangible, recognizable, and punitive (here are five options). Because if he does not do so, Trump will destroy the potential of his future words. And for the next three years, as for the last four, America’s adversaries will embrace the moment.
Tom Rogan (@TomRtweets) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a foreign policy columnist for National Review, a domestic policy columnist for Opportunity Lives, a former panelist on The McLaughlin Group and a senior fellow at the Steamboat Institute.
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