Syria strike a "significant blow" to US-Russia ties

WASHINGTON — The United States’ military strike against Syria threatened Russian-US relations as the Kremlin denounced President Donald 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.

Mr 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 US election, found that goal at risk as both sides traded harsh words in a diplomatic confrontation reminiscent of past dark moments between the two powers.

President Vladimir Putin’s office called the Tomahawk cruise missile strike on Syria a violation of international law and a “significant blow” to the Russian-US relationship, while Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said it had “completely ruined” it.

For their part, Trump administration officials suggested Russia bore some responsibility for the chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians that precipitated the US response.

At home, Mr 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.

Mr Trump was among those who urged Mr Obama not to order a strike back then, even though far more civilians had been killed at the time.

But in a sign of the complicated nature of domestic politics after nearly 16 years of US wars abroad, an odd-bedfellow mix of ideological enemies joined together to criticise Mr Trump’s action, including anti-war 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 Mrs Clinton, called Mr 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 US allies in Europe and in Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia cheered Mr 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.

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

“The United States took a very measured step last night,” Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said Friday 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 Mr Trump ordered the first direct US attack on Syria’s government in six years of grinding civil war, the White House indicated no further move to unseat Mr 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.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson characterised the strike as an “overwhelming success” and said Americans should be proud of the “overpowering” force of the US military. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that the US would impose additional sanctions on Syria, but he did not discuss the timing or targets.

But the strike inserted the US, for a moment at least, into one of the world’s most intractable conflicts and demonstrated the potential dangers of Russian and US forces operating in proximity.

As many as 100 Russian troops were believed to be stationed at the Syrian air base targeted Thursday. A US 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 US 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 Friday, Russian officials said it would be cut off at the end of the day. The US and Russia have other ways to track each other’s aircraft and avoid collisions, but US officials considered the hotline an important vehicle to ensure safety, as well as a valuable political connection.

Syria condemned the US strike as “a disgraceful act,” news agencies reported. A statement from Mr Assad’s office said the cruise missile strike was a result of “a false propaganda campaign.” Syria has denied that it has chemical weapons.

The cruise missiles struck Al Shayrat airfield at 3:40 a.m. Friday local time, targetting the base that US officials said had conducted the chemical weapons attack. The missiles were aimed at Syrian aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, radars, air defense systems, ammunition bunkers and fuel storage sites. US military planners avoided sites that they suspected held chemical agents, officials said.

Syrian officials and news outlets reported that six soldiers and nine civilians had been killed. Talal Barazi, the governor of Homs province, said the civilians had died from shrapnel wounds.

US military officials said 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles had struck their targets at the airfield, destroying 20 to 25 aircraft: roughly 20 percent of the 7th Wing of the Syrian air force. One missile aborted after launch and fell into the Mediterranean.

But a spokesman for the Russian military, Maj-Gen Igor Konashenkov, called the effectiveness of the US airstrikes “extremely low,” asserting that just 23 had hit their targets. The US missiles, according to the Russian military, destroyed a warehouse of matériel and technical property, a training building, a canteen, six MiG-23 aircraft in repair hangars, and a radar station. Evgeny Poddubny, a Russian television reporter who was at the air base, said nine planes had been destroyed.

The strike plan was put together at the US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, and alternatives were developed within hours of the chemical attack. When Defence Secretary James Mattis briefed Mr Trump on Thursday, the options had already been winnowed to a Tomahawk cruise missile strike at Al Shayrat.

Two US destroyers, the Porter and the Ross, were already in position in the eastern Mediterranean. Trump gave the order Thursday afternoon shortly before hosting Mr Xi for dinner, and confided in the Chinese leader only as the meal was breaking up, aides said.

The presence of Russian military personnel at the airfield complicated the decision. Given the Russians’ presence, US officials said they must have known about or turned a blind eye to the Syrian chemical weapons. The United States notified the Russian forces on the ground in a conversation described as lengthy, with the Russians doing much of the talking. The Russians were at a part of the base that was not struck, Pentagon officials said.

Clues to how Moscow will respond might not come until Tuesday, when Mr Tillerson, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil and an old friend of the Kremlin, is set to make his first visit to Russia as secretary of state.

“There will be many screams on the Russian television with people condemning the strikes, but everybody understands that this is just a symbolic act meant for Trump to look different from Obama,” said Vladimir Frolov, a foreign affairs analyst. “There won’t be any tangible reaction; this was a one-off strike.”

Others suggested that the lack of an initial Russian military reaction in Syria pointed to a realistic approach. “Moscow might not like Washington’s response,” Mark Galeotti, an expert on the Russian military, wrote in an online commentary, “but nor was it willing to stand in the way of it.” THE NEW YORK TIMES