What did Donald Trump do today?
He got confused about Syria again.
The Assad regime in Syria, which is allied with Russia, is rapidly losing ground to rebel forces and may soon collapse. Trump used the occasion to attack former President Barack Obama for not having intervened more strongly in the Syrian Civil War during his presidency—while simultaneously insisting that the United States should not intervene in any way.
He was apparently referring to Obama's decision not to get the U.S. military directly involved after Assad used chemical weapons on opposition forces in 2013. At the time, private citizen Trump demanded that Obama not take action, tweeting that the "VERY FOOLISH" Obama should under no circumstances intervene—which is the opposite of what he now says should have happened, but the same as his plan going forward.
If that sounds confusing, it's nothing new. The Syrian conflict is complicated, and the complexity often proved too much for Trump to keep straight during his first term. Among the notable events of that period:
- He launched an attack against a Syrian airbase that was so ineffective that it was out of commission for less than a day, rather than a more effective form attack that would have risked Russian lives.
- It later came out that the token effort to attack the pro-Putin Assad regime had literally been a bit of Mar-a-Lago dinner theater meant to impress visiting Chinese officials.
- He telegraphed his strategy for Syria, in an attempt to look tough on Russia, which gave Russia what they needed to be in a position to counter it.
- He "declared victory" in Syria as a result of a single airstrike on a munitions depot, which in no way changed anything about the status of the war.
- He forgot what side Russia was on in that conflict—which is to say, he forgot that the Putin regime was the enemy who wanted him to withdraw, which is what he did.
- He betrayed the allied Kurdish forces that had done the lion's share of fighting against ISIS in Syria, leaving them to be overrun by hostile Turkish troops over the objections of essentially his entire military staff
- James Mattis, his defense secretary, resigned over that betrayal of allies. Brett McGurk, the top official working on his administration's anti–ISIS efforts, also quit in protest.
- Overwhelming majorities in both parties passed a resolution condemning his abandonment of the Kurdish forces in Syria.
Why does this matter?
- At the very least, a president ought to be able to keep straight what side of a war he is on.
- Just letting hostile foreign powers do whatever they want isn't a great strategy.
- "The thing I wanted was right unless the person I don't like did it" is how a child thinks, not somebody responsible for the lives of American troops.