Trump Enforces the ‘Red Line’ on Chemical Weapons by David Ignatius, Washington Post
Even for a president who advertised his coldblooded pragmatism, the moral dimensions of leadership find a way of penetrating the Oval Office. In the case of President Trump, the emotional distance seems to have been shattered by simple, indelible images of suffering children in Idlib, Syria.
“When you kill innocent children, innocent babies — babies! — little babies . . . that crosses many, many lines. Beyond a red line, many, many lines,” Trump said Wednesday, his voice high and stretched, after pictures surfaced of lifeless infants choked to death by poison gas.
The recognition: The Syria slaughter “is now my responsibility.” And the admission: “I do change.”
With that conviction, Trump took military action Thursday night, ordering retaliatory missile attacks on a Syrian air base…