The impact on objects in Syria is not aimed at overthrowing the regime of Bashar Assad, despite the fact that the United States called for his resignation and government change seven years ago. In order to remove this criminal family from the whole of his entourage from power, a much longer military campaign will be required, implying a significant ground presence. And America does not set itself such tasks.
However, even Assad retains the title of president of the Syrian Arab Republic while the operation carried out can have very positive consequences. But it all depends on what happens next.. If there is no continuation - as it happened a year ago - then another surge of "noise and fury" will not mean anything at all.
A year ago, the United States reacted with a massive blow to the next crime of the Asad regime - the massacre of people using chemical weapons. The main task was retribution for the deed and prevention of such horrors in the future.
However, whatever punishment was carried with them by cruise missiles aimed at the airbase, the blow was actually inflicted into the void. Somehow, the US made it clear to Russia and her ward that the attack would be one-time - a beautiful but meaningless gesture connected with the use of Asad's nerve gas sarin. This deadly poisonous substance has already been applied by the Syrian regime against children and adults in August 2013.
After the strike inflicted by the Americans in April 2017, Assad apparently decided that he had received the green light to do whatever he pleases with defenseless civilians - only without using sarin. The United States hardly achieved such a result. But it all looked so.
After a while, Trump's administration could watch with increasing horror how all the deterrent funds that have been used so far against Assad cease to work. A few months ago, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Lieutenant-General McMaster, then adviser to the US President for National Security, admitted that the United States expected to force the Asad regime to abandon chemical weapons, but recently the use of chlorine in order to maim and intimidate civilians, has become almost commonplace phenomenon.
It seems that not long ago Assad decided that he should go to extreme measures and be baptized with the most powerful and proven means for the final subordination of the suburbs of Damascus, the Duma. And he did this with a blatant sense of his own impunity, in full confidence that he would stand up any retaliatory strike (if necessary), then he would paint a kind of Middle Eastern Churchill and calmly return to his usual occupations. And Washington let itself applaud for the successful operation.
In repeatedly attacking the same rake, there is no lesson, no benefit. This time, America must make it clear to the Kremlin that it is about the inadmissibility of massacres perpetrated by a terrorist state, and not about the kind of instrument that committed a crime. If Russia believes that by its actions Assad will force the United States to return troops to Syria then and in such a way as it will be convenient for him, perhaps the last blow of retribution will convince someone surrounded by the Syrian president that peace talks and an agreed political decision to change the regime Is a much better outcome. At a minimum, it is necessary to seek the cessation of chemical attacks in the future, with reliable guarantees and inspection capabilities.
If consistent and confident diplomatic steps are not pursued, military actions in themselves will not bring benefits. Assad will continue mass killing of civilians, and this will mean that Washington once again only pointed out the inadmissibility of using sarin - and gave a green light to the rest. The humanitarian catastrophe will grow like an avalanche, and its demographic consequences for America's allies and friends in this region and beyond will be unpredictable.
Without a thought-out plan of action, it is impossible to achieve the goal.
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