Politics

Donald Trump finally had something positive to say on Twitter. After nearly a week of dithering, the president made a decision and announced it, to a fair amount of surprise, on national television on Friday night: The United States, in concert with the United Kingdom and France, would launch targeted strikes on Syrian chemical weapons facilities, in response to a heartbreaking attack a week earlier in a Damascus suburb that killed dozens of civilians, including children. “A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!” Trump tweeted on Saturday morning. Those last two words gave many pause.

President Donald Trump must have a lot on his mind as an eventful week—even by the new standard he’s created in Washington—comes to an end. He has now met the deadline he set himself on Monday, when he promised to make “major decisions” within 24 to 48 hours on Syria, after “Animal Assad,” as he calls that country’s dictator, unleashed a chemical weapon attack on civilians including children. A trade war between the United States and China is still brewing, with American farmers worried their livelihoods are at risk after China vowed to stamp tariffs on their products in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on aluminium and steel—and Trump reconsidering his rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership to help them.

So Britain is responsible for staging the Syrian gas attack? According to Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov: “We have evidence that proves Britain was directly involved in organizing this provocation.” Evidence, shmevidence. Next thing you know Moscow will be offering to assist Yulia Skripal. Oh, wait. It already did.Vladimir Putin cannot conceal that his regime is complicit in some very odious deeds—and that it’s feeling increasingly confident about taunting the West. The Russian claim is deliberately preposterous.

Almost from the moment Donald Trump was inaugurated the 45th president of the United States, his supporters have complained about the existence of a “deep state” within the bureaucracy that’s out to get him. There might be something to this, but not in the way its theorisers imagine. Civil servants have a lot more to do with the making and implementation of foreign policy, for example, than most outsiders appreciate. But a personal, targeted, organised campaign aimed at destroying the president? Those who believe such a conspiracy exists pointed, as further evidence, to the bombshell news this week that the FBI raided the offices and temporary home of Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. But if this is the deep state at work, it goes very deep indeed.

Mark Zuckerberg came to Washington this week. Just an ordinary, common-sense guy, with matching hoodies in his roll-on, and a company that was worth well over half a trillion dollars before it emerged that it had shared its subscribers’ personal information, instead of sticking to its real business of selling that information to advertisers. The future president wore a suit for his perp walk before the media and his Congressional cross-examination by some random old people. He could not help but look contemptuous—like the uncool grandchild of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Busted for drugs in 1967, Jagger and Richards knew that time was on their side.

Good gracious! David Brooks, a charter member of the Never Trump movement, suddenly raises the white flag in his column today. Brooks is despondent. His efforts to expose Trump’s perfidy have failed. Instead, a very bad man, we are told, reigns supreme.The catalogue of woe is extensive. According to Brooks: “We have persuaded no one. Trump’s approval rating is around 40 percent, which is basically unchanged from where it’s been all along. We have not hindered him. Trump has more power than he did a year ago, not less.  …We have not dislodged him. For all the hype, the Mueller investigation looks less and less likely to fundamentally alter the course of the administration.” Really?

The Syrian civil war is in its endgame, and the ‘political solution’ that the leaders of the Western democracy talk about is in sight. That is one meaning of the appalling images from the chemical weapons attack on Eastern Ghouta. In 2011, Western intelligence agencies unanimously declared that Bashar al-Assad was finished, and that it was only a matter of time before he fell. Today, Assad, with massive Russian and Iranian support, has regained control over most of Syria.After the chemical attack on Eastern Ghouta, Arab news sites claimed that the Jaish-el-Islam militia had announced that it was willing to negotiate a ceasefire. This is another meaning to be found in the images of children gasping for air in a bombed-out hospital.

Poor Paul Manafort. Manafort, who tried to extricate himself from the Mueller investigation by filing a civil case alleging prosecutorial overreach, was skewered by federal judge Amy Berman on Wednesday. By the time Manafort showed up in court, his lawyer was furiously back-pedalling about what they were demanding. 'I don’t really understand,' Berman said, 'what is left of your case.' He suffered more indignities when the Guardian published a lengthy expose by Luke Harding on Thursday about his 'black ops' strategy in Ukraine. For Manafort it amounts to revealing the precious trade secrets that he patiently acquired over years of work. Harding is what is politely called an investigative journalist, which used to be known as a muckraker.

A new era of chemical warfare is upon us—an era of chemical warfare as psychological warfare. The poisoning of Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, has dominated the headlines. But another development, from around the same time as the Salisbury attack first became known, is revealing for the attention it hasn’t received. Have you heard about the chemical weapons in Syria that don’t belong to Bashar Assad? On March 22, the State Department officially declared one Joe Asperman a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” and subject to sanctions. “French national Joe Asperman is a senior chemical weapons expert for Isis,” the State Department announced.

Edward Luce warns today in the Financial Times that Donald Trump’s fusillades at Amazon and its proprietor Jeff Bezos are more than simply addled bluster. They represent, we are told, a coherent strategy to undermine independent media. “Trump,” Luce writes, “has already tilted the playing field towards his media allies.” Pshaw! Trump isn’t hurting Bezos. He’s helping him. Trump, of all people, should know the value of free publicity. No one has done more to rehabilitate the media than Trump.  As Jack Shafer astutely observes in Politico, “Every denunciation of the Post, the New York Times, NBC News, CBS News, CNN and other outlets serves to boost those outlets’ audiences and their corresponding revenues.