I have no idea what to make of Trump's airstrike.

One thing I do strongly suspect: the Donald is incapable of master plans. He has a couple of tricks for manipulating the media (assert something ludicrous on the basis of no evidence, using his position of relative power to leverage action that demands it be reported on) and his supporters (basically sell them a bill of goods, the way any common snake oil salesman does). But master plans? I've never seen it. "Pathological failure" is a more apt description of him. [Insert list of Trump's failed business ventures here.] He's only president right now because the Democrats put up a historically weak candidate.

If you look at his behavior over time, it's been erratic and marked by naked opportunism. He was a Democrat, then a Republican. He was against the war on drugs, now he thinks legal, recreational weed is bad. He was for partial-birth abortions, now he's against abortion except in cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother. He was for taxing the rich and major corporations, now he's against it. In his first few months in office, he came out strong against the media, then he tried to placate them with an address before Congress in which he strove to look and sound "presidential." He endorsed and tried to ram through Congress a repeal of the main substance of the ACA which he had virtually no hand in crafting and which was even more unpopular than he is. The atmosphere of the West Wing might best be described as dismayed paranoia, and multiple respected psychologists (including Howard Gardner) have accused him of narcissism. His twitter feed is one ongoing temper tantrum without beginning or end.

Consequently, the idea that there is a master plan at work here (even assuming he did collude with the Russians to take the White House, which has yet to be proved) rings rather hollow. With how closely the FBI and Congress are looking into his and his associates' connections with the Russians, Trump would have to be not merely delusional and/or narcissistic to continue back-channel communications with them but so utterly divorced from reality that he could not even be as functional as he is.

Ultimately, this is likely just another classic Trumpian move: unplanned and unfocused in the extreme. The only real question on my mind is, "What happens now?"

Trump is very transactional...he doesn't have the kind of personality that wants to understand how something works in deep detail. Instead he has a strong sense of what feels right (especially from a popular lay-man point of view) and his strategy is just to demand his team make it happen, without concerning himself too much with how they do it, or even if his demands are possible.

That puts the whole world in a really precarious position. On the one hand, Trump isn't exactly a psychopath, but he definitely has the capacity to blunder into something he can't talk his way out of.

Putin's got Trump right where he wants him. I believe Putin has set all of this up to declare war on us while we have an idiot in office who will fall for everything! We struck Syria, and Russia can now claim we "started it". Russia will have license to go to war with the U.S.. Good thing for Russia that they installed the US president of their choice. I mean seriously. So many questions: 1. Can we have a real assessment of success of strike? Seems we didn't decimate the airbase 2. Casualties? 3. WHY DID WE WARN THE RUSSIANS? 4. And did the Russians in turn warn the Syrians? 🤔

Never try and second guess an idiot , and certainly never one as capricious as Trump.

When nothing is certain, the wise thing is not to use weapons.
'First shoot then ask' is still quite popular in America.

maybe it should have been done seven years ago?

It's called a President not taking shit from the middle east. Hasn't been seen since Reagan.

The only problem is who to install after Assad...

This is what happens when a global superpower elects a weak egotist as president.

Agree. ✌

No idea what to make of it either given Trumps past views and relationship with Putin, very strange.

Just the typical power play

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