4/10/2017 MENU John Bolton: Tomahawks fired, now think about a new Middle East | News | The Times & The Sunday Times monday april 10 2017 Ready for unlimited access? Subscribe now for just £1 a week for 8 weeks. TRUMP GOES TO WAR John Bolton: Tomahawks fired, now think about a new Middle East The strikes on Assad and the routing of Isis could lead to Iran’s isolation and the redrawing of Syria and Iraq John Bolton April 9 2017, 12:01am, The Sunday Times Assad: Syria’s Sunnis will not accept him as their leader again SANA/REUTERS Share Save The Obama era in American foreign policy ended in Syria in the early hours there on April 7. Donald Trump’s prompt, calibrated and devastating assault on the airbase from which al-Assad’s dictatorship launched planes loaded with chemical weapons to https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tomahawksfiredthenexttaskistothinkaboutanewmiddleeastpmcg65lmv 1/13 4/10/2017 John Bolton: Tomahawks fired, now think about a new Middle East | News | The Times & The Sunday Times murder innocent civilians was a fire bell in the night for all of MENU mondayAmerica’s april 10 2017present and potential adversaries. Ready for unlimited access? Subscribe now for just £1 a week for 8 weeks. Whether Syria (and perhaps Russia) thought they would get away with the renewed use of chemical weapons based on media perceptions of Trump’s national security proclivities, we may never know. But his response has demonstrated that Trump will do what he believes is necessary when America’s security is threatened. Vladimir Putin and perhaps even US Democrats will now realise there is no puppet of Moscow in the White House. Iran and North Korea should take due note of the eżects of 59 well-aimed Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles (“T-LAMs” in our jargon: they should become familiar with it). No Hollywood scriptwriter could have imagined a scenario where Trump orders the attack and then sits down to dinner with Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, and their wives. Welcome to the American way of war. There is no doubt that Trump’s limited and precise attack was fully justified. Syria was a party to the chemical weapons convention, as is the United States. Whenever any party to a treaty that forbids the use or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction breaches its commitments, that constitutes a threat to American national security. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tomahawksfiredthenexttaskistothinkaboutanewmiddleeastpmcg65lmv 2/13 4/10/2017 MENU John Bolton: Tomahawks fired, now think about a new Middle East | News | The Times & The Sunday Times Alleged civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria monday april 10 2017 for unlimited access?'fair' Subscribe nowAugust for just £1 a week for 8 is weeks. AllReady casualties reported since 2014. 'Fair' defined as an incident that has had a reasonable level of public reporting from two or more generally credible sources and a confirmed coalition strike in the vicinity 300 200 Sep 2016 Oct 2016 Aug 2016 Jul 2016 Jun 2016 Apr 2016 May 2016 Mar 2016 Jan 2016 Feb 2016 Dec 2015 Oct 2015 Nov 2015 Sep 2015 Jul 2015 Aug 2015 Jun 2015 May 2015 Apr 2015 Mar 2015 Jan 2015 Feb 2015 Dec 2014 Nov 2014 Sep 2014 Oct 2014 Aug 2014 100 Source: Airwars.org Critics in Washington who argue that the president needs congressional authorisation should study their constitutional history. In the immediate aftermath of the strike, many will ask only what is next for Syria. In fact, the geostrategic question is far broader, encompassing nearly the entire Middle East. Two important politico-military factors have changed dramatically since Trump took o寰ce. First, unlike Barack Obama, Trump has no concern that his actions in Syria, especially those directed against Assad, will https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tomahawksfiredthenexttaskistothinkaboutanewmiddleeastpmcg65lmv 3/13 4/10/2017 John Bolton: Tomahawks fired, now think about a new Middle East | News | The Times & The Sunday Times adversely ażect the nuclear deal with Iran. Trump’s criticisms MENU mondayof april 10 deal 2017 that are abundantly clear. Ready for unlimited access? Subscribe now for just £1 a week for 8 weeks. Second, and perhaps even more important now, we are rapidly approaching the point of eliminating the Isis “caliphate” in what used to be Syria and Iraq. It behoves Washington and all other concerned parties to think hard about what will replace the vacuum created when Isis’s territory is liberated. It is especially important to structure the Isis defeat to minimise the upside advantages for the Iran-led coalition, which includes the pro-Iran Baghdad regime, Assad’s Syria and Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorists. Russia is allied with this coalition, openly so in the case of Syria where Russia has a naval base at Tartus and a new airbase at Latakia. We should not think only in terms of an either/or outcome in Syria: either Assad goes or Assad stays. There may be other outcomes, including partitioning Syria (and Iraq), leaving Assad in control only of what has been called “the Alawite enclave”. Complex, seemingly intractable issues lie ahead, as the postFirst World War Middle East order collapses, but they cannot be ignored under the complacent assumption that Syria and Iraq will simply re-emerge as the states they were before the illnamed Arab Spring and the equally ill-fated US decision to withdraw its forces from Iraq, both in 2011. The Kurds are already de facto independent from Iraq and no one will force them back into Iraq against their will. Sunni Arabs will never happily submit to a government in Baghdad dominated by a Shi’ite population outnumbering them three to one and dominated by Tehran. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tomahawksfiredthenexttaskistothinkaboutanewmiddleeastpmcg65lmv 4/13 4/10/2017 John Bolton: Tomahawks fired, now think about a new Middle East | News | The Times & The Sunday Times Similarly, Syrian Sunnis will not accept Assad as their ruler MENU mondayagain. april 10To 2017 believe otherwise is to ignore that such outcomes will simply precipitate further conflict and more extremism. Ready for unlimited access? Subscribe now for just £1 a week for 8 weeks. The main issue is to keep the aspiring nuclear weapons state Iran, still the central banker of international terrorism, from emerging in an even more menacing regional position. Weakening Assad’s forces — and reminding Tehran implicitly of what Washington did to Saddam Hussein in 2003 — can only improve the regional prospects for stability. The lesson is that American strength is a force for international peace and security and American weakness an incentive for the world’s predators. April 6, the day in US time when Trump ordered the strike against Syria, marked the 100th anniversary of America’s entry into the First World War. We never asked for global responsibilities, but when it mattered we acted and we acted justly. Let America’s critics around the world think on that. I am particularly proud to be an American today. John Bolton was the American ambassador to the UN, 2005-6 Share Save Comments are subject to our community guidelines, which can be viewed here. 22 comments Newest | Oldest | Most Recommended Philip Woolf 19 hours ago Three incredibly important comments here in this excellent article. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tomahawksfiredthenexttaskistothinkaboutanewmiddleeastpmcg65lmv 5/13
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