Top 15 Reasons Why Trump’s Syria Strike Is So Unsettling

1.) President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, pushed for the strike in Syria and won the argument with Steve Bannon. No one imagined during the campaign that Kushner would be brought into the administration and would rapidly amass so much power on core issues like our foreign policy. We didn’t vote for his royal highness Jared Kushner.

2.) President Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, was also brought into the administration and has similarly amassed considerable power. During the campaign, Ivanka’s sphere was perceived to be limited to women’s issues like maternity leave which were non-problematic. Now, we are in a situation where Ivanka’s feelings are influencing the president on matters of war and peace and superpower conflict, which is something we never imaged would happen during the campaign.

3.) I traveled to Washington to attend President Trump’s inauguration. Richard Spencer was also there on the National Mall. We clearly heard him say “from this day forward it is going to be America First, America First.” In less than three months, we have gone from “America First” to Hillary Clinton’s “responsibility to protect” foreign policy which produced interventions in the Balkans and Libya.

4.) Hillary Clinton chimed in to endorse Trump’s attack on Syria.

5.) Every leading neocon has endorsed the attack on Syria and called for an invasion and occupation of the country which would plunge us into yet another Middle East quagmire for years.

6.) This was done because Assad is an “evil dictator” who has “gassed his own people.” He is a totally irrational madman. It is the exact same language that was used to justify invading Iraq.

7.) We supported Trump in part because we wanted a better relationship with Russia and an end to our current foreign policy. Instead of moving beyond the Cold War, we have returned to it.

8.) Trump has sawed off the “America First” foreign policy leg of his appeal. This casts new doubt on all of his other promises. If he can dispense with something that fundamental to his campaign, what’s next?

9.) Clearly, the decision has been made that we are going to preserve the American Empire. Trump is going to play the role of “Leader of the Free World.” In other words, the world’s problems are going to be our problems. We could easily stumble into a war with Syria and that would end up absorbing the attention of President Trump rather than everything he promised to do to “Make America Great Again.”

10.) Israel wants us to invade and occupy Syria. The same is true of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Gulf States. We’re back to the days of fighting wars on behalf of other countries.

11.) ISIS and the “moderate rebels” are already near defeat. There is no reason to intervene in Syria except to further destabilize that country and prolong the violence there.

12.) As a friend pointed out on Twitter, the essence of globalism is the belief that the world is our jurisdiction. Obama kept us out of Syria and Iran. That was a good thing.

13.) Trump won over a lot of swing voters who opposed Hillary because she was perceived as being the warmonger in the race. They probably feel betrayed by now.

14.) Nothing good came out of Iraq or Libya. Syria is already a disaster. It would be madness to plunge into that disaster. It is a country even more dysfunctional than our own.

15.) The attack on Syria was done with total disregard for the Constitution and international law. It was an unprovoked act of aggression against a sovereign country. It was both immoral and illegal.