Trump Blasts Syrian Base

President Trump has ordered a Tomahawk missile attack on the Syrian air base from which it is believed that a chemical weapons attack was launched against Syrian civilians:

The United States launched dozens of cruise missiles Thursday night at a Syrian airfield in response to what it believes was the Syrian government’s use of banned chemical weapons blamed for having killed at least 100 people on Tuesday, U.S. military officials told NBC News.

Two U.S. warships in the Mediterranean Sea fired at least 50 Tomahawk missiles intended for a single target — Ash Sha’irat in Homs province in western Syria, the officials said. That’s the airfield from which the United States believes the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fired the banned weapons.

Good decision? Bad decision? Time may tell, although the situation in Syria is so tangled that it may never be possible to know for sure. One thing Trump has established–potentially more significant than the immediate consequences of today’s attack–is that the era of empty threats from the U.S. government is over.

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