I don’t know anything more than anyone else does, outside of the decision makers’ circle, about the reasoning behind the Tomahawk missile attack on a Syrian airport. Have the US neocon warmongers won over Trump and the White House, as I see suggested? Have the Goldmanites? Is that the same group of people? If Trump has conceded to the warmongers, will Putin be next in line? Should Russia have pushed through when it had the upper hand in Syria, and ‘finished’ the job?
All these things, and many more, are possible. What’s certain is that Trump’s popularity will surge in America. Nothing unites like a Tomahawk, it seems. Plus ça change… But what has really happened? ABC reports that the Syrian army appears to have been warned in advance of the attack, and pulled out its people and as much of its material as it could.
That means either the Americans have warned them, or more likely the Russians have, as the US knew they would when it told Moscow about the impending ‘operation’ before it took place. And that makes it largely symbolic then, doesn’t it, as former National Security Adviser Richard Clarke suggests to ABC. Of course that would change if there are additional, and more deadly attacks, and that could happen any moment now. For now it’s more or less plausible though.
But why launch a symbolic attack on Assad? Why not go ‘bigly’ if you really want him gone? It’s not exactly a first warning. Is it perhaps a symbol meant for Putin to understand? Does the US tell Moscow that it should better control Assad? Doesn’t sound convincing. But it still sounds better than Trump putting on a show for domestic consumption only. It may make him more popular, but he can do without the protests.
There’s another element in all this that deserves more scrutiny. Sort of linked to the Putin-Assad connection. That is, why was the attack launched at the very moment that Xi Jinping was sitting down for dinner at Mar-a-Lago? Trump had reason to show the world that he’s willing to use his strength. You can question the whole thing, but it makes sense, from a military point of view, in more than one way.
And the biggest threat to the US, and perhaps the world, is not Assad. It’s North Korea. The US had to tell China that its protégé is getting out of hand. That has been going on for a while of course, but Kim fired a bunch of rockets recently, and one of these days that could lead to a -nuclear?- ‘accident’. Countries like South Korea and Japan are getting very nervous, and the US has vowed to protect them. As Xi is well aware.
So the symbolism here may be directed, in a pretty direct way, at Xi Jinping. Get your boy under control or we soon will have no choice but to do it for you. And we don’t want to do that, because you will lose face if we do, and if that happens the two of us may get into a conflict, on opposite sides. Which neither of us should want. It would be bad for business. And while you’re here to discuss business, let’s get this out of the way first.
As I said, I could be wrong in much of this, but I don’t believe for a second that the attack taking place while Xi is at the ‘Winter White House’, is a coincidence. That, too, is a symbol. And it’s not about starting a war, the US has been active in Syria all along, albeit more secretly. That would suggest it’s useful to wonder why this attack was executed the way it was, and why there is so much fanfare surrounding it, why this specific one had to make all the headlines.
Before dinner, Trump reportedly said he had already struck a friendship with Xi, and “I have gotten nothing, absolutely nothing.” Jovial banter between two men, and their delegations, who are extremely wary of each other. So much so that direct open serious talk is difficult, that is done on the sidelines and in backrooms by assistants. It’s the kind of situation in which people talk, communicate, in symbols.
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