Dante80
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This was actually brought up in the Press Conference that Mattis and Dunford gave. He said that all three locations targeted were chosen partly for their suitability in preventing civilian casualties and/or collateral damage. As regards to a possible chemical/biological agent fallout from the strikes, they believed there possibility for it was very small. A proper briefing for the attack will be given this morning.
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Now, as the dust settles. Some thoughts.
My take on this is that in the last week extra-ordinary pressure AND self-interest surfaced in the current US administration to compound for a symbolic strike like this. There were a couple of reasons for that.
1. one-upping the Obama administration, supporting the rhetoric that the current administration is not weak or feeble.
2. alleviating allegations of collusion with Russia.
3. changing the national conversation to obfuscate a number of running scandals (Comey's book, the raid on Cohen, Mueller's probe).
4. Consolidating republican leadership and legislature around the POTUS.
Remember, the current administration was voted in on a non-intervention nationalistic platform. It has been one week or so that the current POTUS proclaimed a policy decision and shift towards leaving Syria.
As I had said at the time military entanglement came to the table just after the chemical attacks, it is both improbable and unwarranted for Russia to escalate against NATO forces if its own forces at the field are not attacked. At the same time, I said that NATO forces will offer a token/symbolic action, because it is impossible for them to actually hurt Assad in a quantitatively significant way, as long as Russia and Iran are strongly in the mix in Syria.
I honestly think that the fact these strikes were (1)duly announced days before, (2)concentrated on a constructed and targeted messaging campaign about chemical weapons, (3)were designed and executed in a way that eliminated Russian escalation or substantive Assad regime harm and (4)included Britain and France for messaging purposes, really supports my argument. RealPolitik-wise, this was a posturing campaign to validate Western Exceptionalism, not a significant move towards the civil war or against the Assad Regime.
Cheers.
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