Christopher Kozak, a Syria analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, agreed the strike was a necessary development toward reestablishing U.S. deterrence, but stressed that the administration needs to persist in deterrent measures to reap lasting results.
“The key point is that outside actors are going to be perceiving that this is a world where the U.S. and the White House will be willing to use military force in order to assert itself in a way that the U.S. has not been doing for quite some time now,” Kozak said in an interview.
“But if this isn’t followed through with a larger strategy to achieve our national security objectives, if it’s not followed through with sustained pressure on Assad and his backers, then it really accomplishes little and may even be counterproductive depending on the reactions its provokes from other actors,” he added.
Kozak and Schanzer emphasized the need for the administration to take on Syria with a two-pronged strategy that addresses both the Islamic State and the Assad regime. Kozak said the administration will fail in its fight against ISIS unless it deploys diplomatic and military action to strike a negotiated settlement between the Syrian government and rebel groups.
Even Fareed Zakaria was impressed:
Trump’s actions also brought out the mental illness in democrats. Lawrence O’Donnell went off the rails:
O’Donnell said, “[W]ouldn’t it be nice if it was just completely, totally, absolutely impossible to suspect that Vladimir Putin orchestrated what happened in Syria this week so that his friend in the White House could have a big night, with missiles, and all of the praise he’s picked up over the last 24 hours? Wouldn’t it be so nice if you couldn’t even in your wildest dreams imagine a scenario like that?”
Another idiot democrat (but I repeat myself) suggested that Trump might have been distracting from his collusion with Putin by destroying tens of millions of dollars in Putin’s assets. You can’t make this stuff up.