What Is Trump's Syria Policy?
Updated on April 11 at 4:05 p.m.
As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson landed in Moscow Tuesday, a fire blazed on the margins of Vnukovo Airport. This provided at least a couple useful metaphors, depending on one’s view of the situation. Russian officials said the fire was at a garbage dump, meaning it was a literal manifestation of that most versatile of epithets, the dumpster fire, which could be applied to the state of Russo-American relations at the moment.
For a more value-neutral analogy, the fire was a smoke screen, obscuring what exactly U.S. policy toward Syria is. It’s hard to tell not only what the policy is but what the reasons for it are, a problem exacerbated, or rather caused, by the fact the administration does not speak with one voice. President Trump himself has been uncharacteristicallytarget in Syria, and for what they indicate about U.S. policy toward Syrian President Bashar al-Assad going forward. Is it a one-off because of a chemical-weapons attack, or the start of a broader offensive against Assad? Has Trump established a new red line that, if crossed, will trigger American action? In the absence of clear articulations from the Oval Office, here are some of the voices driving Syria policy.
