Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is one of many senators who doesn’t expect Russia to retaliate against the U.S. over the recent strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.
“No, I think they’re very pleased with the strikes over the weekend,” Graham told the Washington Examiner.
Russia issued a series of increasingly-dire warnings last week, when President Trump promised to make Assad pay a “big price” after humanitarian groups reported hundreds of casualties resulting from a chemical weapons attack outside of Damascus. Afterward, U.N. officials warned repeatedly of a potentially-catastrophic clash brewing between Russia and the U.S.
The U.S., France, and the United Kingdom eventually targeted three chemical weapons facilities, after giving Russia advance warning to avoid unintended casualties. Now, senators think that’s the end of it.
“It’s hard to know [how Russia will respond] because they did deconflict,” Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Democratic member of the Foreign Relations Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “If they were really communicating… ‘it’s a one-off punishment for using chemical weapons’ we may not see much back.”
That’s a low-key outcome for an operation that international leaders had suggested could spark a global conflagration.
“I am expressing a concern about international security — not only regional, or national, or Syrian security,” Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, told the Security Council on Monday.
Turkish Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli concurred. “If an attack occurs against the forces [in Syria] backed by Russia or there is an attack by the U.S.-supported forces, Russia won’t be able to stay away, otherwise it will lose its influence,” he said. “So, serious clashes may start.”
Trump may have avoided that outcome by limiting Western powers to an “underwhelming” set of targets, Graham suggested.
“Russia is the primary reason, Assad — along with Iran — is still in power,” he said. “I thought the strike didn’t change the equation much at all. If our only interest in Syria is being chemical weapons police, I think we’re in trouble.”
Kaine was also uncertain that the most recent strikes would succeed in deterring Assad from continuing to use chemical weapons, particularly given that a smaller strike last April failed to do so. “The strikes last year had little effect,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that these will have no effect. Getting France and Britain and the United States together, that could have an effect.”
But their long-term significance will depend on Trump’s next steps in Syria, which remain unclear to policy-makers.
“I don’t know is what the administration’s strategy is,” Kaine continued. “Within a week, we went from getting out to ‘we’re doing a bombing’ to ‘we’re still going to get out in four to six months’ [to] ‘no, maybe we won’t.’”
French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters that he convinced Trump to maintain a long-term commitment to stabilizing Syria.
“The White House is right to remind us that our military commitment is against Daesh and will end the day Daesh is finished,” Macron told reporters Monday, using an alternative name for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “France’s position is the same, but I’m right to say that the United States of America — because it decided to carry out this intervention with us — fully realized that our responsibility went beyond the war on Daesh, and that we also have a humanitarian responsibility on the ground and a long-term responsibility to build peace.”
Graham wants Trump to adopt a more aggressive posture, in order to set the table for peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland brokered by the United Nations.
“I’d create no fly zones, safe zones, so people can live without being barrel bombed, give Syrians the chance to regroup, then go to Geneva,” he told the Washington Examiner. “I’ve been saying that for six years.”
Any plan Trump’s team develops will have to take account of Russia’s military support for Assad.
“There is definitely a clear-cut awareness of the situation in Syria,” Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Russian Federation Council Committee for Foreign Affairs, said Monday. “That understanding is the ‘red lines’ beyond which Russia’s reaction will clearly get tougher if these ‘red lines’ are crossed.”
