It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. In the White House, apparently, it is worth 105 missiles if it shows the suffering of women and children from a lethal combination of sarin and chlorine gas. President Donald Trump’s response, obliterating three chemical-weapons-related facilities in Syria, demonstrated that the United States will not stand idly by when certain chemical weapons (CW) are used against civilians. Coaxing the chemical genie back into the bottle was the right decision even if it came some five-and-a-half years after President Barack Obama declared “a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized” in Syria would constitute a red line.
Beyond its importance in reestablishing some measure of deterrence and degrading the Syrian regime’s ability to use such weapons in the future, the aerial assault demonstrated that the United States is capable of striking at will inside the capital of murderous dictator Bashar al-Assad. As a result, it finally puts to rest the absurd notion propagated by the Obama administration and its supporters that the United States couldn’t operate in or over Syria because of Assad’s top-notch Russian-made air defense systems.
