The U.S. and its British and French allies defied Russian warnings Friday in a trilateral attack against Syrian government facilities allegedly associated with the production of chemical weapons. However, experts said the move was unlikely to end the war unless the U.S. could establish a follow-up strategy and some common ground with Russia and Iran.
The U.S. may have already forfeited its position as regional power broker, as it struggled to counter Russian military success in Syria and pursued an isolationist, rather than diplomatic, approach to an increasingly influential Iran. Without an accompanying push for negotiations, Trump’s limited Syria strikes would do little to deter Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from using chemical weapons, much less put pressure on his Russian and Iranian partners.
Related: U.S. ally Iraq joins Russia and Iran, says Trump’s Syria strikes may help ISIS
“These strikes should have been used to precipitate actual negotiations,” Harlan Ullman, an author and senior adviser at the Washington-based Atlantic Council, told Newsweek. “The trouble with this administration’s strategy, it’s the same as with Obama, is that there is no strategy.”
Source: http://www.newsweek.com/does-trump-have-syria-plan-russia-does-us-still-behind-888148
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