Can we talk about World War III ?

Are we allowed to use the term world war finally?

A few days ago, Putin and Trump were still imagining opening peace talks with Assad... How irrational is this decision to bomb overnight?

When historians will look back, when would they say this world conflict started? 2011? 2003?

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Details from (what remains of) the news:


NewYork Times :

WASHINGTON — In launching a military strike just 77 days into his administration, President Trump has the opportunity, but hardly a guarantee, to change the perception of disarray in his administration.

The attack will also shape the meeting next week between Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — the first face-to-face encounter between the Russian leader and a member of the Trump administration.

Before the strike on a Syrian air base on Thursday night, the meeting had been expected to be dominated by the investigation into Russia’s cyberattacks and the interference in the presidential election on Mr. Trump’s behalf.

But the Syria action gives the Trump administration an opportunity to demand that Mr. Putin either contain or remove Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, or else Mr. Trump will expand the limited American military action — and quickly — if the Russian president fails to do so.

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NYT still:

What We Know

* Fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles were fired from American destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean at Al Shayrat airfield in Syria, where officials said Mr. Assad’s chemical weapons attack this week originated.

* Mr. Trump ordered the strike after two days of intense deliberations that involved two meetings of his top national security advisers, including one that Mr. Trump conducted from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

* In announcing the strikes on Thursday evening, Mr. Trump called the chemical attack “very barbaric” and said his decision would “prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.”

* Administration officials described the missile strikes as a message to the world about Mr. Trump’s resolve and his commitment that the United States will no longer “turn away, turn a blind eye.”

* American officials did not inform Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, whose forces are also active in Syria, before the strikes. In a briefing, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson criticized Moscow for failing to live up to its promise in 2013 to destroy all of Syria’s chemical weapons, calling Russia either “complicit” in the recent attack or “incompetent.”

What We Don’t Know

* The strike’s impact on the airfield’s capabilities. H. R. McMaster, the president’s national security adviser, said Mr. Assad would “maintain a certain capacity beyond this particular airfield” to use chemical weapons.

* Officials did not provide details about casualties at the airfield, either among Syrians or among others, including Russians, who might have been there when the missiles struck their targets. Officials said measures had been taken to minimize casualties among “third-country nationals.”

* American officials did not publicly address the potential reaction from Mr. Assad or his allies in Russia and Iran.

* It is hard to know whether Mr. Trump’s use of military force this early in his term is an indication that he intends to develop an aggressive foreign policy based on the frequent use of force — something he often criticized as a candidate.

* The political impact of the strikes. Presidents often see a quick improvement in their favorability ratings after using military force. But Mr. Trump acted without the consent of Congress, and in the long term, the public may turn against a president for using the military in this way.

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In The Guardian, this powerful column:

Trump's senseless Syria strikes accomplish nothing

Moustafa Bayoumi

The US bombing of a Syrian airfield is flip-floppery at its worst. And it signals to America’s foes that Trump can be easily dragged into military quagmires


Friday 7 April 2017 07.11 BST

Donald Trump, the man who just over a month ago wanted to bar entry of all Syrian refugees into the United States, now wants us to think that he cares deeply about Syrian children. I don’t believe it.

What I do believe is that our president is a bad actor. He was a bad actor on his old television show, and he’s still a bad actor today. And he’s a bad actor in both senses of the term, which is to say his actions are poorly executed and morally questionable. 

Addressing the nation from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the president announced that he had authorized “a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched.” Trump was referring to a chemical weapons attack on Tuesday that killed more than 80 people, including dozens of women and children, in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. The chemical attack had in all likelihood been carried out by the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

But what will the US’s military strike – a barrage of at least 59 (offensively named) Tomahawk cruise missiles aimed at a lone airfield – really accomplish?

According to reports, the missiles targeted only a single Syrian airfield and not Syria’s air defenses. In other words, the attack does not ground Syria’s air force. Nor did the attack strike any of the Russian aircraft currently bombing Syria. In fact, the Russians were alerted of the attack beforehand (who may, in turn, have also alerted the Syrians). The attack does not significantly degrade the military capabilities of Bashar al-Assad.

So why attack in the first place? Once again, we’re being told by military officials that their actions are intended “to send a message.” What nonsense this is. Will Bashar al-Assad now cease his murderous actions because he’s just been delivered “a message”? How are we supposed to believe there is any strategy to Trump’s actions anyway? Just last week, Nikki Haley, Trump’s UN ambassador, said of Assad: “Do we think he’s a hindrance? Yes. Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No.”

What the erratic flip-floppery of Trump’s foreign policy really means is that America’s foes can easily manipulate the Trump administrationinto greater and greater military quagmires. 

Has the administration considered how Lebanon’s Hizbullah will react to the US bombing their close ally Bashar al-Assad? Is the Trump administration prepared to put large numbers of troops on the ground to accomplish its goals? Will it militarily challenge Russia if needed? Or does the US military now only “send messages”?

The administration seems to have no vision of what it wants to accomplish or what it can accomplish. Trump ended his announcement of Thursday’s strike with the modest goal of ending “terrorism of all kinds and all types.” Good luck with that. Meanwhile, the heart of the problem is that the United States seems always to have only one solution to war: make more war. 

None of this exonerates the murderous, thuggish and brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad. The moral and strategic imperatives of our world today demand that the Syrian civil war be brought to a swift and just conclusion. And we must recognize that the end of Syria’s civil war will not be found through military means but through careful deliberation between many different parties. 

But we are moving farther away from those goals. At its best, Thursday’s reckless and largely ineffective bombing does little but make US lawmakers feel good about themselves. At its worst, it deepens a war which the US has no idea how to end.

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