Last week, President Donald Trump promised to withdraw from Syria. This week, he opened a new front against Syrian leader Bashar Assad that risks drawing the U.S. into a broader conflict there.
By attacking Assad late Friday, the Trump administration sought to warn the Syrian leader against continuing to use illegal chemical warfare agents, following the gassing of civilians near Damascus last weekend.
The administration calculated that the need to send a signal to Assad over chemical weapons outweighed the possibility of provoking a response from his allies, Russia or Iran, on the battlefield in Syria, elsewhere in the Middle East or even in cyberspace.