President Trump ordered a
Tomahawk missile barrage against Bashar Assad’s forces in retaliation for the Syrian
nerve gas massacre of April 2017. The White House threatened to repeat this action just last week based on intelligence of an imminent chemical attack. Trump’s attacks against Assad have left in smoldering ruins years of Obama administration talking points about action against Assad triggering “World War III.”

In the last years of the Obama presidency, administration officials waved off any and all of my suggestions to build Syrian opposition leverage and coerce Assad into negotiating. They warned that such suggestions – even humanitarian airdrops – could trigger World War III with Russia, the most important backer of the Assad regime.