Trump reset entire foreign policy

The world is agog at President Trump’s head-snapping foreign policy reversal.

He runs on a platform of America First. He renounces the role of world policeman. On April 4, Trump declared: “I don’t want to be the president of the world. I’m the president of the United States. And from now on, it’s going to be America First.”

A week earlier, both his secretary of state and U.N. ambassador had said that the regime of Bashar al-Assad is a reality and that changing it is no longer an American priority.

Then last week, Assad drops chemical weapons on rebel-held territory, and Trump launches 59 Tomahawk missiles into Syria.

This was, in part, an emotional reaction to images of children dying of sarin poisoning. And, in part, seizing the opportunity to redeem President Obama’s unenforced red line on chemical weapons.

Whatever the reason, moral or strategic, Trump acted. And effectively reset his entire foreign policy.

True, in and of itself, the raid will not decisively alter the course of Syria’s civil war. Assad and his Iranian, Russian and Hezbollah co-combatants still have the upper hand – but no longer a free hand. After six years of U.S. passivity, there are limits now and the United States will enforce them.

Moreover, the very swiftness of the response carried a message to the wider world. Obama is gone. No more elaborate forensic investigations. No agonized presidential handwringing over the moral dilemmas of a fallen world. It took Trump 63 hours to make Assad pay for his chemical-weapons duplicity.

America demonstrated its capacity for swift, decisive action. And in defense, mind you, of an abstract international norm – a rationale that dramatically overrides the constraints of America First.

Trump’s inaugural address had boldly rejected the 70-year American consensus to bear the burdens of world leadership. Less than three months later, the Syrian raid abruptly changed that course with a renewed interventionism – not, to be sure, in the service of a crusade for democracy, but in the service of concrete strategic objectives, broadly defined and extending far beyond our shores.

To the North Pacific, for example. The Syria strike sent a message to both China and North Korea that Trump’s threats of unilateral action against Pyongyang’s nukes and missiles are serious.

The message to Russia was equally clear. Don’t push too far in Syria and, by extension, in Europe. We’re not seeking a fight, but you don’t set the rules. Syria shared the Sharyat base with Russian troops. Russian barracks were left untouched, but we were clearly not deterred by their proximity.

The larger lesson is this: In the end, national interest prevails. Populist isolationism sounds great, rouses crowds and may even win elections. But it’s not a governing foreign policy for the United States.

The world is on notice: Eight years of sleepwalking is over. America is back.

This story was originally published April 14, 2017 at 6:50 PM with the headline "Trump reset entire foreign policy."