Justin Raimondo’s hypothesis is that Trump has betrayed his campaign promises and those who voted for him hoping for an era of less US interventionism. From Raimondo at antiwar.com:
Are we going to war based on fake intelligence?
President Donald Trump has launched an attack on a Syrian air base in retaliation for the alleged sarin gas attack supposedly carried out by Bashar al-Assad’s government on Islamist rebels in Idlib. The irony is this contradicts every statement he ever made about Syria in the presidential campaign. Furthermore, this attack takes place barely 72 hours after the alleged incident, with no clear evidence that Assad was responsible.
In ordering this strike – more than 50 missiles launched by US ships in the Mediterranean Sea – Trump has blown up a basic tenet of Trumpism to smithereens.
One of my vivid memories of the 2016 campaign is the look on Bill O’Reilly’s face when Donald Trump answered his question about intervening militarily in Syria and the Russian role in that country:
“O’Reilly: “Once Putin gets in and fights ISIS on behalf of Assad, Putin runs Syria. He owns it. He’ll never get out, never.
Trump: “Alright, okay, fine. I mean, you know, we can be in Syria. Do you want to run Syria? Do you want to own Syria? I want to rebuild our country.”
Here’s a tweet – in all caps, no less – from 2013, in which Trump gave vent to his views about intervening in the Syrian mess:
And then there’s this statement, uttered in a speech to his supporters after the election during his “victory tour”:
I could go on, but you get the picture: Trump campaigned against precisely the kind of intervention that he is now launching. At a news conference in the Rose Garden, with King Abdullah of Jordan looking on, he said:
“I now have responsibility. It crossed a lot of lines for me. When you kill innocent children, innocent babies – babies, little babies – with a chemical gas that is so lethal … that crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line…. I do change and I am flexible. That attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me. Big impact. It was a horrible, horrible thing. It’s very, very possible that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.”
To continue reading: Trump Betrays Trumpism: Syria in the Crosshairs
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