Trump enforces Obama’s red line
AEIdeas
Barack Obama drew a red line in Syria, but refused to enforce it.
Donald Trump just did it for him.
When Obama made his “head-spinning reversal” not to enforce his red line in Syria, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2013, then National Security Adviser Susan Rice warned that “he risked undermining his powers as commander in chief.” With his air strikes against Bashar al-Assad’s regime last night, President Trump has gone a long way to restoring the powers – credibility – that Obama had squandered.
US Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) conducts strike operations while in the Mediterranean Sea which U.S. Defense Department said was a part of cruise missile strike against Syria on April 7, 2017. Ford Williams/Courtesy US Navy/Handout via REUTERS.
Just as Obama’s inaction sent a message of weakness across the world – a message heard from Damascus to Moscow, Tehran, Beijing and Pyongyang – Trump’s action has projected a message of strength. And just as weakness is provocative, strength deters would-be aggressors who now have to adjust their calculations about America’s willingness to act, unilaterally if necessary, in response to their provocations.
The world is thus a little safer this morning.
Recall that after Obama declared his red line, Assad responded by virtually taunting the president, using his chemical weapons not once, not twice, but 14 times beginning in December 2012. Instead of responding decisively, Obama tried to walk his red line back, declaring it was not his but the world’s. He then went to the world and asked them to join him in enforcing “their” red line. He found only one country (France) ready to do so.
He then went to Congress. But after Secretary of State John Kerry declared that any strike would be “unbelievably small” and would not really constitute “war,” he found few members willing to back him.
So without any political cover, he decided not to act – turning instead to Vladimir Putin to get him out of his pledge to impose costs on Assad with a face-saving agreement for Syria to give up its chemical weapons – one we now know Assad violated with impunity.
“It crossed a lot of lines for me,” Trump said, adding that if he decided to take action in response: “I’m certainly not going to be telling you.”
Contrast that with Trump. When reporters tried to get him to declare a red line of his own on Thursday, he refused to take the bait. “It crossed a lot of lines for me,” Trump said, adding that if he decided to take action in response: “I’m certainly not going to be telling you.”
The following day, he ordered the strikes that took out the base from which the chemical attack had been launched. No public writhing. No looking for public cover from allies or Congress. He just acted.
The fact that he gave the order to strike Assad while the president of China was at Mar-a-Lago discussing what to do about North Korea certainly must have sent a message to the Chinese leader – and changed the tenor of the next day’s conversations. Trump’s earlier declaration: “If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will” no longer sounds like just bluster.
Obama’s failure to enforce his red line reverberated around the world. Well, now Trump’s decisive actions are reverberating as well. One military strike won’t reverse eight years of projecting weakness, to be sure. But it is an awfully good start.
