Thursday, March 28, 2024

The Socialist’s Journal: Syrian Airstrikes

Brookins Head Shot

*Last week President Trump authorized an airstrike against Syria purportedly because the government there had been launching attacks against its citizens.  There are three takeaways from President Trump’s decision, each more important than the last and more central to who Trump is and how he operates.

The first is that Trump is hot headed and made a rash decision based on humanitarian reasons. This is only partly true. President Trump did in fact make a statement which referenced the suffering of children as justification for the use of American force. But it is difficult to conclude that Trump acts based on humanitarian concerns when his entire campaign was counter to looking out for the best interests of non-Americans whether those other countries be in good or bad shape. President Trump indeed did make a quick decision with respect to the time that had elapsed since the alleged Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons. But President Trump could have been waiting for such an opportunity as I’ll get to below.

The second conclusion one might draw is that while President Trump was elected because of his strong nationalist rhetoric, he has had a bit of a change of perspective and is now actually embracing his role as leader of the free world. This would explain how Steve Bannon, one of the architects of Trump’s nationalist persona, has been reassigned from the National Security Council. Certainly there was nothing about the situation in Syria that was threatening American national security so it’s easy to believe the reports that Bannon was not enthusiastic about the use of American force. This idea about a change in President Trump’s perspective is probably true but not because of some new intelligence he’s received or any reflecting he’s done. More likely is the fact that Trump has always been a pragmatist. I believe that’s what led him (someone who has associated with powerful liberal politicians for decades) to run as a Republican for president – it was the easier path knowing that the Democratic Party would line up behind Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. Having used the nationalist rhetoric to gain office Trump is probably doing some complicated calculus about how valuable a nationalist stance is in the international community and coming to the conclusion: not very. I don’t believe President Trump really believes the children of Syria really deserved American help, but he knows that saying that they do and acting on their behalf is a much more valuable position and leads him down a much more productive path.

The third conclusion, and the one I believe reflects the President’s true position the best, is that Trump sees himself as a winner and loves positive attention. This isn’t quite breaking news because Trump is human and most people think of themselves as winners and enjoy praise, support and encouragement. The difference with President Trump is that because of his life’s history he hasn’t had to deal with the realities of failure and negative attention the way most people have; he hasn’t learned to cope with those negative outcomes. Businessman Trump could declare bankruptcy and then take a month’s vacation in the Mediterranean while most people would have the stigma of bankruptcy cling to them for years. Suffice it to say that Trump has lived a charmed life and I am not aggrieved by him on this point. But because of this charmed existence what does President Trump have to fall back on when his presidency is being criticized from most liberal and conservative pundits and media outlets? When President Trump is not viewed as a winner and is receiving more negative attention than ever in his life. President Trump takes the easiest road to positive attention. He authorizes the American military to carry out an attack that could not fail, and warns the intended target ahead of time to minimize the loss of foreign lives. He gets to look good by sticking up for Syrians who are being abused and there is no American lives lost and very few Syrian lives lost. This military action was a ploy to get people speaking positively about the President again. This military action was an event to throw everyone off the scent of his failure to do the thing he set out to do – reform public health care.

I disagree with the policies that Trump has been promoting and I hope that most never come to fruition (I’m leaving open the possibility that there is something he  and I both like, although I haven’t found that policy yet).  And I won’t let myself become distracted by a fireworks exhibition so that the President can boost his stock.

Trevor Brookins is a free lance writer in Rockland County, New York. He is currently working on a book about American culture during the Cold War.  His writing has appeared in The Journal News. You can reach him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @historictrev.

 

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