Lines lines lines

Please Mr Trump, no red lines unless you mean it. Obama tried it once the last time Assad was throwing chemical bombs around, and his red line was pretty well the end of Obama as an international leader and the beginning of Assad's next phase in his extraordinary survival game. Now, after the latest appalling bombing with sarin nerve agent, killing up to 100 people, Trump has used the same dodgy word. Well at least he didn't say Assad had passed a red line. He just said Assad had crossed many lines. But what does it actually mean? Can the US really go in and start bombing Assad or his army? Russia, Hezbollah, Iran would go mad. it would just make the complicated mess in Syria even more disastrous. But Assad has to be stopped somehow. What will Trump come up with? Putin and his cronies will do nothing except continue claiming that it was the rebels who did it. No one, not even Xi Zinping I shouldn't wonder, believes that story. It's time Assad was taught a serious lesson. Will Trump bomb the Syrian airbase thought to be the one from where the regime aircraft took off? Will he shoot down Syrian air force fighters? This is a dangerous moment. But if he does decide to attack Assad in some way, irrespective of what the UN Security Council wants, it will be a tumultuous moment for the new president. It will send a huge warning signal to Putin and an even bigger warning signal to Kim Jong-un. And, by the way, bombing Assad will do Trump no harm at all. It will be him telling the world that he's not Obama. When he talks of a line, or lines, I suspect he really means it. We thought Obama really meant it when he issued his red line ultimatum to Assad, but he backed off. I somehow think Trump will not back down. The US could be bombing Assad before the weekend, maybe even tonight. Perhaps, after all the indecision and weakness of the Obama administration, it is Trump's moment. It won't help to bring peace to Syria but it will punish Assad for waging war against his own people and make life difficult for Putin. That would be a pretty good result.