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The cruise missiles that crashed down before dawn on a Syrian airbase sent a clear message to President Bashar al-Assad: The use of chemical weapons will be met with US force.
The outcome is less clear: Assad's grip on power is as firm as ever and he has lost little of his ability to carry out more chemical attacks.
President Donald Trump said the goal of the military action was deterrence. Officials said strikes targeted the Shayrat airbase to prevent it from being used to launch attacks like the one this week that killed more than 80 people and provided sickening images of individuals suffering from exposure to a sarin-like nerve gas.
The base's airstrips, hangars, control tower and ammunition areas were struck.
But the surprise barrage of missiles raises questions about where US Syria policy is headed after Trump's rapid reversal of positions in recent days.
Just last week, his administration stressed that removing Assad from power was no longer a priority and that America's focus was entirely on defeating an ISIS insurgency in the north of the country. But on Thursday night, Trump appeared to endorse a new, open-ended commitment to respond to any use by Assad of weapons of mass destruction.
Such declarations carry risks. No US officials declared the threat of more chemical weapons eliminated. If Assad isn't deterred, more attacks would mean more scenes of people foaming at the mouth in agony and bodies lying in heaps. The United States may have little option but to up the ante militarily.
Navy Capt Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the US was still assessing the result of the 59 Tomahawks it fired, expressing hope that Assad's government learned a lesson. He said it was ultimately "the regime's choice" if more US military action would be needed.
The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people, contributed to the worst refugee crisis since World War II, and shows no end in sight. Assad's forces are locked in battle with a bitter, if weakening, opposition camp.
Under President Barack Obama, the United States spent most of the war trying to stay out of the fray.
Engaging the Syrian government as an enemy means Damascus can respond in kind. That creates added danger for US forces on the ground in northern Syria waging a separate war against ISIS, and American aircraft targeting extremist groups from Syria's skies.
Up to now, despite public complaints, Syria's government and its allies – Russia and Iran – have essentially given the United States and its coalition partners a free pass to conduct their counterterrorism mission.
Perversely, the US strikes also risk emboldening Assad to use even greater brutality if he senses Washington's intrusion as a threat to his rule.
"One strike against one air base may be enough to deter him from using sarin gas again, but it will not deter his effort to target civilians, target hospitals," said Jennifer Cafarella, a Mideast expert at the Institute for the Study of War.
The United States is also in a murky situation now with Assad's two key international backers.
US officials, meanwhile, said little about Iran, a country that could retaliate against the United States and its allies in a variety of ways, from interfering with Persian Gulf shipping to provoking Israel.
But Edward Djerejian, a former US ambassador to Syria and professor at Rice University, said Trump's message to the region's potential foes was clear.
(This article has been published in an association with Associated Press)
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