US strike in Syria: Russia warns of serious consequences

Russian threatens to shut down a hotline established to prevent accidental clashes over Syria

The American military strike against Syria threatened Russian-American relations on Friday as the Kremlin denounced President Trump’s use of force and the Russian military announced that it was suspending an agreement to share information about air operations over the country, devised to avoid accidental conflict.

Trump, who has made repairing strained ties with Moscow a central ambition of his presidency, even amid criticism of Russian meddling in last year’s American election, found that goal at risk as the countries traded harsh words in a diplomatic confrontation reminiscent of past dark moments between the two powers.

President Vladimir V Putin’s office called the Tomahawk cruise missile strike on Syria a violation of international law and a “significant blow” to the Russian-American relationship, while Prime Minister Dmitri A Medvedev said it had “completely ruined” it. Trump administration officials suggested Russia bore some responsibility for the chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians that precipitated the American response.

At home, Trump found support among a broad cross-section of normally critical establishment Republicans and Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Senator John McCain, who backed the sort of action that President Barack Obama refused to take under similar circumstances four years ago. Trump was among those who urged Obama not to order a strike back then, even though many more civilians had been killed at the time.

But in a sign of the complicated nature of domestic politics after nearly 16 years of American wars abroad, an odd-bedfellow mix of ideological enemies joined together to criticise Trump’s action, including antiwar liberals who said it violated the Constitution and isolationist conservatives who called it a betrayal of the values he expressed as a candidate. Even some who supported his action, like Clinton, called Trump hypocritical for lamenting the deaths of Syrian babies while seeking to bar Syrian refugees from the United States.

The strike also roiled world capitals and dominated a session of the United Nations. Led by Russia, Syria and its backers denounced it, while American allies in Europe and in Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia cheered Trump on. The debate raged as the president was in Florida hosting a high-stakes summit meeting with President Xi Jinping of China to discuss, among other things, how to contain another international pariah state, North Korea.

Trump left it to others to address the issue on Friday, but his team signalled that no further military strikes were imminent unless the government of President Bashar al-Assad again used chemical weapons against Syria’s people.

“The United States took a very measured step last night,” Nikki R Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, said during a special meeting of the Security Council focused on Syria. “We are prepared to do more, but we hope that will not be necessary.”

Even as Trump ordered the first direct American attack on Syria’s government in six years of grinding civil war, the White House indicated no further move to unseat Assad, leaving the strike to speak for itself. “This action was very decisive, justified and proportional,” said Sean Spicer, the president’s press secretary. “It sent a very strong signal not just to Syria, but throughout the world.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that the United States would impose additional sanctions on Syria, but he did not discuss the timing or targets.

But the strike inserted the United States, for a moment at least, into one of the world’s most intractable conflicts and demonstrated the potential dangers of Russian and American forces’ operating in proximity. As many as 100 Russian troops were believed to be stationed at the Syrian air base targeted on Thursday. An American official said the Russians on the ground had been given 60 to 90 minutes’ notice that the missiles were coming and had not been advised whether to take shelter or flee.

Although Russia did not deploy its air defence system in Syria against the American missiles, it flexed its military muscles after the attack. Moscow said it would bolster Syria’s air defences, and the Russian news agency Tass reported that a frigate would enter the Mediterranean Sea on Friday and visit the logistics base at Tartus, a Syrian port.

The Russian military said it would shut down a hotline established to prevent accidental clashes in the skies over Syria. While the two sides used the channel earlier on Friday, Russian officials said it would be cut off at the end of the day. The United States and Russia have other ways to track each other’s aircraft and avoid collisions, but American officials considered the hotline an important vehicle to ensure safety, as well as a valuable political connection.

North Korea, meanwhile, said the US missile strikes were “an unforgivable act of aggression” that showed its decision to develop nuclear weapons was “the right choice a million times over”.

©2017 The New York Times News Service