Not enough to make a difference

My piece on the US/French/British attack on Syria’s chemical weapons plants is up on The National Interest, three days after I submitted it and without significant changes, but authors aren’t supposed to complain about such things. My only regret is that I didn’t get a chance to insert a few words about ways in which the attack could conceivably shift the political terrain, both internationally and within the US. I am grateful to an unnamed Syrian friend for inspiring this post.

Internationally, the attack in principle could send a strong signal to the Russians that they no longer have completely free reign in Syria. Three permanent members of the UN Security Council are prepared to act without its authorization. The Americans, Brits and French also managed either to evade Russian countermeasures or to convince the Russians not to use them. Of course President Trump undermined the strong signal when he backed off the Russia sanctions his Administration was recommending.

The attack also suggested that those within the Administration who want US troops to stay are gaining ground. There is no real connection between the troop presence in eastern Syria and the attack, but if we care enough to send 105 missiles against Assad presumably we also care enough not to withdraw the troops without something in return. Trump is also the joker in that pack, since he could of course just summarily withdraw, apparently hoping that some Arab force will materialize to do the hard work of stabilization and reconstruction. Fat chance of that.

So I’m afraid even with these political shifts, if in fact they have occurred, the likelihood of any further intervention in Syria is small. The Russians will continue their air assault on Syrian opposition-controlled areas. Assad will either abstain from chemical use for a while or test us by starting small and building up to larger attacks. He has gotten away with it for years–it is even possible the Douma attack was not supposed to kill so many people. I don’t see any sign Trump is ready to attack again unless something big happens.

The Russians meanwhile are delaying the arrival of the inspectors from the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Warfare (OPCW) at the attack site, hoping to clean it up thoroughly so that there will forever be some doubt in some people’s minds that a chemical attack even took place. The OPCW in any event doesn’t determine who was responsible for the attack, only whether the chemicals were used. So Assad and Putin can continue to claim that the rebels did it. Why they always use the chemicals against themselves and never against their Syrian, Iranian or Russian enemies doesn’t bother those who are pleased to hear the Russian denials.

So I stick with my main point: Trump did just enough not to be accused of failing to defend his red line, but not enough to make any real difference in Syria’s wars.