What ever happened to Trump the isolationist?

In a surprising reversal in what he had stated to be his inflexible policies, less than 12 hours ago Donald Trump ordered a military strike against the Syrian regime, reacting to the use of Sarin gas by the Syrian dictator Bashal al-Assad against the civilian population of Syria.

In his inaugural address as President, Trump had clearly stated that “From this moment on, it's going to be America First”, which many of his cheering loyal supporters interpreted as the hell with the rest of the world!.

Well, that didn't last long.

Not only did Trump promise that “From this moment on, it's going to be America First”. He had also clearly stated in a lot of previous speeches that he fully expected other countries to pick up the tab for military expenditures that so far only the US has carried on its shoulders for quite some time, and it is widely suspected that he went to the discourteous extreme of handing German Chancellor Angela Merkel a $374 billion invoice for NATO.

Well, it turns out that the attack with 59 Tomahawk missiles carries a price tag. At 1.59 million smackaroos a piece, the military strike ordered by President Trump had a cost of $93.8 millions dollars, all that money to be paid down to each single cent by the American taxpayer.

The decision taken by Trump, based solely on its merits of sending a clear military response to the brutal Syrian dictator, was a no-brainer. Indeed, Leon Panetta correctly predicted that a US strike against Syria could be expected in a matter of  a couple of hours, or at the most a couple of days, this in spite of the much ballyhooed isolationist position of Donald Trump. In the end, Leon Panetta was right.

Beyond the merits of propping up his bottom rock standing in the polls, Donald Trump had other important reasons to order the military strike against Syria. First and foremost is the fact that it was Donald Trump, as President, who enticed Bashar al-Assad to commit this horrible crime against his own people, by saying the the ruthless Syrian dictator was someone with whom negotiations could be carried out. That is, until the Syrian dictator ordered a chemical attack on his own people. Trump did an about-face by saying that the Syrian chemical attack had changed his view of Assad. In his own words: “I will tell you that attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me – big impact. My attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much … You’re now talking about a whole different level.”

Let's go back one step here. “Even by the horrors of the Syrian civil war, what happened today will stand out as a crime against humanity,” was the first sentence uttered by Anchor Scott Pelley as CBS Evening News came on the air. But he then seemed to insinuate that the blame rested at President Trump’s feet. “The attack came five days after the Trump administration signaled that the Syrian dictator would not be held accountable for the slaughter of his people,” stated a very serious Pelley, “The Trump administration said Bashar al-Assad could remain in power, a reversal of Obama-era policy that said Assad had to go.”

In light of these observations, it was more than obvious that after the Syrian chemical attack Donald Trump had a true veritable urgency to distance himself from Syrian dictator Bashal al-Assad whom he himself propped. And distancing himself from Bashar al-Assad was a very good reason behind the order to carry out a limited military strike against the Syrian butcher.

But there is yet another overriding consideration in pushing Donald Trump for taking the decision he took regarding the Syrian chemical attack. Just before ordering the attack, Donald Trump was up to his neck with issues involving some of his closest aides with agents of the Russian government and the help that may have been asked from them to help Donald Trump secure the presidency in return for special favor and considerations to the Russian government. And what better way to distance himself from the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin than to strike at someone in the Middle East who is depending upon Russia as an ally in order to avoid total collapse? This was one way of turning his back on Russia without doing it directly, just indirectly.

Beyond the two reasons given above, distancing himself from Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and from the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, there is yet another factor pushing Donald Trump to order the attack upon the Syrian dictator, and it has to do with the issue of North Korea. By speaking like a though guy warning North Korea of the possible consequences of an intercontinental ballistic missile test and then doing nothing when Kim Jong Un ordered the firing of several mid range missiles in two separate episodes, Donald Trump showed a weak spot, exposing himself as pure talk and no action and becoming the laughing stock of many around the world, especially the Koreans. It just turns out that when the time was ripe to order the US military strike against Syria, the Chinese President Xi Jinping was visiting Donald Trump. And what better way to send a private message to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, than through a personal message via the Chinese President, warning that he is considering a similar surgical strike as was done in Syria in case North Korea insists in its provocations? Now may be the time to intimidate North Korea, after private talks with the President of China, in order to convey him the warning that Donald Trump means business, or else.  Syria was on the receiving end of the dozens of cruise missiles launched on President Donald Trump’s orders, but the message they sent went out in a very timely basis to North Korea.

There is a fourth important factor weighing in the decision of Donald Trump to abandon his isolationist rhetoric, and it has to do with Trump distancing himself from his far right counsellor Stephen Bannon whose agenda has taken Trump from one major setback (like the Obamacare repeal fiasco) to another. With Bannon demoted and for all practical purposes out of the way, Trump can abandon his isolationist attitude and order the involvement of the armed forces in an attack against Syria as well as other countries he personally dislikes.

Life does not often hand down a series of joint but different circumstances in which a certain decision seems to be not only the best but the only possible logical choice. Usually there will be conflicting scenarios with pros and cons where one option may be just as bad as the alternative. This time, for Donald Trump the choice was easy, ordering the military strike against the military forces of the Syrian butcher had many pros outweighing the cons. Next time, he may not have it so easy.