In foreign affairs, there’s a lot to be said for unpredictability. Puzzlement can induce one’s enemies to hold back or make stupid decisions. Henry Kissinger famously portrayed Nixon as acting “somewhat crazy” to keep the Soviets guessing—even to the point of dramatically elevating the readiness level of the Strategic Air Command to make it look as though a nuclear strike were imminent. (It wasn’t.) Nixon was hardly the first to see the value in unpredictability. In the 16th century, Machiavelli remarked that it’s a “very wise thing to simulate craziness at the right time.”
Mixed messaging, in short, isn’t always a bad thing in diplomacy.
Then there’s Donald Trump and Syria. He has been on all sides of this issue. He has publicly vowed withdrawal and publicly vowed confrontation. Last year, he launched a missile attack on a Syrian airbase in retaliation for Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons. Then on April 7, just after the president had suggested withdrawing U.S. assets from Syria, Assad’s forces again deployed chemical weapons, against civilians in a suburb of Damascus. A few hours later, Trump was back to confrontation on Twitter: “Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay. Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!”
Back in August 2013, Trump, still a private citizen, tweeted: “Why do we keep broadcasting when we are going to attack Syria. Why can’t we just be quiet and, if we attack at all, catch them by surprise?” In the same month, he replied to another tweet, saying, “No, dopey, I would not go into Syria, but if I did it would be by surprise and not blurted all over the media like fools.” Yet there he was on April 11 of this year tweeting: “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’ ”
Obama famously called the use of chemical weapons in Syria a “red line” in 2012 and then did nothing when Assad used them, encouraging the escalation of the Syrian civil war. To avoid the same mistake, Trump is obliged to make good on his threat. But what about the element of surprise? When Trump launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at Assad’s Shayrat Airbase last year, he caught the world by surprise. This go-round, according to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on April 11, “We haven’t laid out any specific actions we plan to take.” And the next morning the president tweeted: “Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all!” Is this sheer folly and unpreparedness or is it Machiavellian strategy?
As is often the case with this White House, it’s best to disregard the rhetorical slapdashery and fix one’s attention on what’s happening. After his April 9 cabinet meeting, Trump spoke with British prime minister Theresa May and French president Emmanuel Macron. Both pledged to be part of a multilateral response to Assad’s barbarity. The Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman has also expressed a willingness to join the response to Assad.
As we go to press, U.S.-led allies have not launched an attack, though we’re told some kinetic action is virtually certain. We could easily argue that the delay is wise. Russian president Vladimir Putin considers Syria a client state, and Russian assets are all over the country. The likelihood of sparring with Russian soldiers or mercenaries, which has already happened at least once, is very high. They have had the time to pull back and reduce the risk of a U.S.-Russian confrontation.
What’s most important is that a cost be imposed on Assad. The Butcher of Damascus murdered hundreds with sarin gas in 2013 and got away with it thanks to Obama’s cause-no-offense foreign policy. Then, as now, the Russian and Syrian governments claimed the gas attack was a false-flag attempt by the Syrian opposition to draw the United States into the war. The idea that the ragtag rebels have access to military-grade sarin gas and that they would launch chemical-armed rockets into highly populated civilian areas they fought hard to control is a propaganda-fueled fantasy. Assad gassed civilians in 2013, he gassed more in 2017, and yet more in 2018. He will keep doing it until the price he pays grows too high.
For all his isolationist rhetoric on the campaign trail, Trump’s instincts appear sound on the question of Bashar al-Assad and his Russian handlers. Unlike Obama, Trump has no delusions about rapprochement with Iran and thus no reason to pretend Assad isn’t the problem. Perhaps Trump’s mad rhetoric is confusion or perhaps it works just fine. If the United States can put a stop to Assad’s ghoulish criminality, we’ll put up with the tweets.
