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

Well its a slight lie. I'm confused and worried.

Without wanting to sound like Donald Rumsfeld; there are known unknowns. Mostly though there are unknown unknowns. The Syrian War is so complicated and with so many atrocities committed on all sides, its hard to know whether slapping down Asad is more likely to lead to peace or not. There are conspiracy theories that this is a Trump/Putin master plan to get The Donald off the hook with the FBI investigation and there are also theories that Trump changed America's entire foreign policy position after watching the evening news. They can not both be true but there may be some truth in one of them, or none of them. Is this a long-term strategy or a ridiculous off-the cuff impulse or somewhere inbetween? Will bombing Assad weaken his position or strengthen the resolve of Putin and he? I dunno.

I am hoping that this is some kind of bluff because nobody wants tensions to escalate between Russia and America. The best way to achieve peace would be negotiation and stopping arm shipments from Iran and Saudi. This has always been a proxy war for regional and global powers though with each of them valuing their own objectives more than Syrian blood. Asad wants to stay in power and any cost, Russia back him because they want influence in the region. America was against him, then seemingly for him and now is seemingly against him. Nobody knows what America wants, what their strategy is or whether there even is one. When nuclear powers are in close proximity, this must be a worry.
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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? 馃
Burnley12341-45, M
Putin is not quite stupid enough to seek an outright war with NATO. He plays the strongman to deal with troubles at home but Russia has actually been reducing its military spending recently. Its not to say that there is no need to be worried but Putin is at least more predictable than Trump.
@Burnley123: I think you might be surprised at the lengths Putin will go to achieve what he wants. Putin's end game: power, oil for oligarchs, revenge for Afghanistan. All he had to do was make an idiot US president. We shall see.