10/04/2017
Javier Zarzalejos
Who would say that a presidency which seemed so far quite chaotic in the operation of the political machinery of the United States would achieve something very close to a miracle?
Those who yesterday praised Obama’s inhibition as prudence when asserting his own red lines with Syria, support now with great comprehension the attack ordered by Donald Trump on al-Shayrat air base. Those who understood that 1400 killed by sarin gas on August 2013 in Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus, were not an acceptable reason for Assad to suffer from retaliation, now consider that 89 dead in Khan Shaykhun do legitimize it. Those who on other occasions have claimed the condition of relentless opinion leaders of the international legality do not even consider it as a theoretical exercise this time, and neither did they with the operation of change of regime in Libya nor with the Balkan War, which anniversary has coincided with the American attack.
Some popular media, always active in the formulation of the moral superiority of the political left, doing this one thing and its contrary, editorialized on the particular in quite bashful terms: “Certainly, the best thing would have been the American action to be preceded by some kind of multilateral support. Certainly, the best one would be by the United Nations. But Moscow has already showed that it’s ready to block any initiative of the Security Council which is at the expense of its protégée in Damascus”. And in a perfect expression of solidarity with Trump –another small miracle– it stated: “In light of the block performed by Moscow, Trump had little room for manoeuvre, especially if what he wanted was to send a message of firmness to al Assad and other regimes which tend to violate with impunity the principles and treaties in which peace and international security are based”.
“Some kind of multilateral support”. So that was it. A dictator with genocidal impulses, enthusiast of using against his people the chemical weapons he guaranteed he had got rid of –getting everybody to believe him- and a UN Security Council unable to perform its primary function in the safekeeping of the international peace and security.
So sometimes they act as representative of the international legality, some other times it’s enough to portray the moral outrage and, as a last resort if the all the previous goes wrong, they make use of the starkest realism. And in all three cases it is decided that who reasons in this way is always right. It’s astonishing that in just two months it has been possible to go from missing Obama’s intended multilateralism to saying that what Trump has done is an amendment to the wholeness of that previous no-policy.
It is possible that the miracle of Trump proves the efficacy of his messages to the Europeans. While the strength of the transatlantic relationship was presumed, the anti-Americanism in its different variants was a profitable and free political exercise. Now that the United States have made sure of clarifying to the Europeans that they shouldn’t assume the Atlantic connection –all that of Europe as counterweight of the Americans– and other musings of the same kind, are not free anymore. For that reason, the most denigrated President in less time has achieved his first great political success precisely with an offensive action in the most dangerous world stage. If Trump has sent a message, he has also tested the solidarity of Europe. And Europe, endorsing its attack on Syria, has replied with its support, aware that it cannot afford the increase of the gap with the United States.
And by the way, Trump has done well by responding to the massacre in Khan Shaykhun, not just for political calculation but for the inherent principles of law that civilized societies must not let fall off.