The Syria attack was a very bad idea on so many levels. Let’s take a look:
He goes against his own advice
He tweeted several times that Obama taking action in Syria was ill-advised.
And then he did exactly what he criticized. Launched an attack without Congressional approval.
Of course he was a young whippersnapper of only 66 then, filled with crazy hippy ideals. Um, no, wait, that never happened, he never had ideals.
He telegraphs intentions
He told them in advance an attack was coming.
This is, for obvious reasons, kinda a no-no in military circles. It puts American military lives in increased danger as the enemy gets an opportunity to prepare stronger defenses. It reduces military options because, with advance warning given, you might, for example, not want to fly over and drop bombs as they’ll likely have more air defense in place. And it allows the enemy to move equipment and personnel away from obvious target areas.
He himself noted this several years ago:
Not just once:
Oh, almost forgot, not just twice either. He was in for three tweets on this one, which is a prodigious amount writing:
He does almost no damage
So thanks to all that advance warning Asad is saying the attacks did almost no damage. Well, at least he saved a bunch of enemy lives (although if I’m not mistaken, in a war, that’s kinda not the goal).
He risks escalated conflict or at least increased tensions with Russia
Russia has been pretty explicit that we won’t do this without repercussions. Most of the planet would like to keep on doing what they’re doing without WWIII and a huge economic crash. And let’s see, can we afford another big war right now? Hmmm… probably not. But we might need to draft people into the military, and that’s an area where he has got some prior expertise.
He further tarnishes the image of the West in the Middle East
The West is already very much seen as a warmonger in the Middle East thanks to our unprovoked attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan. But heck, why not attack a 3rd one? Our image is already in the toilet. I mean maybe he could have pursued diplomatic options and tried to get other countries over there to deal with this, but hey, no use crying over spilled milk.
Planetary disapproval
Yeah, world opinion of the US is already way down, about half of what it was under Obama. Obama was viewed fairly positively throughout the world but Trump is largely viewed pretty poorly. This Syria attack ain’t gonna help. But again, what the heck? There’s nothing so bad you can’t make it worse!
Side note
The attack apparently lasted only slightly over two minutes, just enough so he could get some press about being tough but not accidentally damage anything significant of Putin’s.
faxxus 