After Syria strike, Trump's emerging doctrine is flexibility

Allies in the Middle East and Europe who panned Trump's efforts to ban Syrian refugees from the United States cheered his decision to strike against Syrian President Bashar Assad's military after viewing images of young children killed in the chemical attacks.

Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said the United States was willing to take more action against Assad, while White House officials cautioned that the strikes did not signal a broader shift in U.S. policy.

Mark Feierstein, who served in the National Security Council under President Barack Obama, said it's difficult to glean a direction for U.S. policy from Trump's actions in Syria because Trump "is not moored to any coherent ideology or set of ideas."

[...] the chemical weapons attack, Trump mainly saw Syria as a hotbed for terrorists seeking to attack the U.S. He rarely spoke of the hundreds of thousands killed and the millions displaced during the six years of clashes between the Assad government, backed by Russia and Iran, and opposition groups.

When most of the same guidelines appeared applicable in Syria, particularly after a deadly 2013 chemical weapons attack, Obama backed away from planned military strikes.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whose close ties to Russia raised questions during his confirmation hearings, slammed Moscow for either being "complicit" in the chemical weapons attack or "incompetent."

Skeptics noted that a confrontation with Russia over Syria was well-timed for a president whose campaign is under investigation by the FBI and congressional committees for possible coordination with Moscow during the 2016 election.