Artwork by Michael Anderson and Sam Ben-Meir-Mareeg.com-London- -President Trump’s characterization of the US attack on specific Syrian chemical storage and research facilities as “mission accomplished” is technically accurate, as the intended targets were in fact destroyed. But declaring mission accomplished in the context of the continuing unfolding tragedy being inflicted on the Syrian people is cynical and disheartening at best. Such an isolated attack does not in any way exempt the US from its moral responsibility to bring an end to a war in which the Syrian people have fallen victim to foreign powers and a deeply corrupt regime. The death and destruction sweeping Syria is incomparable to any other violent conflict since World War II, and America cannot afford to remain silent in the face of these unprecedented atrocities.
The lessons from the disastrous war of choice in Iraq and the prolongation of the war in Afghanistan should not paralyze the US, as was the case under the Obama administration. The US can no longer turn its back on the Syrian people. It must carefully consider the repercussions that America’s allies in the region will sustain should Syria be left completely to the whims of Russia, Iran, and Turkey, who met twice in Ankara and are working in unison against the US and its allies’ strategic interests in the region.