Douma attack sends toxic cloud over Trump-Putin relations

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump at the APEC summit in Da Nang last November. Picture: AP

Can you have a good relationship with the leader of Russia at the same time you have a bad relationship with the country of Russia?

The quest to do exactly that has been at the heart of Donald Trump’s global strategy. He has tried hard to separate his leader-to-leader relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin (friendly, free from personal criticism) from the considerable problems in the broader US-Russia relationship (increasingly tense, marked by Russian defiance and American sanctions).

Now that strategy is being put sorely to the test. In fact, it may have died in a mist of chemicals raining down on civilians in Syria at the weekend.

In launching a chemical-weapons attack inside his own country, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — Russia’s friend and recipient of all manner of Russian help — stuck a finger in the world’s eye. The attack came just days after Trump had said he wanted US troops out of Syria and away from its civil war, a declaration that may have emboldened the Syrians.

In any case, the President responded with a rare public rebuke of Putin, in essence charging he was complicit in the chemical attack. That marked a significant departure.

Trump, moreover, has essentially promised a response. He has a range of options. He could order the kind of limited reprisal strike at Syrian targets that he launched under similar circumstances almost exactly a year ago, simply to make a point. He could launch broader US attacks on Syrian military sites, which would have the added effect of indirectly helping the Syrian opposition forces the US continues to aid in the country.

Alternatively, Trump could try to lead a broader international response. The Russians will use their veto to block meaningful action at the UN Security Council, but the US likely could get co-operation from France and Britain if Trump seeks it. The President likes to act unilaterally; this may be the occasion to think multilaterally.

More broadly, the chemical attack may prompt Trump to rethink his impulse to withdraw the small contingent of American forces on the ground in Syria, where their ostensible goal is to help mop up the remnants of Islamic State fighters. Trump’s urge, stated explicitly last week, is to get out and let Assad and his Russian and Iranian friends and the Turks next door sort out the future.

But in the wake of the weekend attack, a withdrawal would make it appear the US is willing to turn the fate of Syria over to the same people who use chemical weapons against the local populace. At a minimum, Trump, having again just criticised his predecessor, Barack Obama, for not taking more decisive action in Syria, now can’t so easily walk away. In short, Trump, like other presidents before him, would prefer to extract himself from the messes of the Middle East; like them, he now may conclude that isn’t easy, and may not even be possible.

Putin isn’t the kind of leader to sit passively if Russian interests in Syria come under attack by the US. The prospect of tit-for-tat escalation of US-Russian tensions in Syria — piled on top of growing worries over Russian interference in American politics, the apparent Russian poisoning of a former spy in Britain and a sham Russian presidential election — is now very real. And the idea that the personal Trump-Putin relationship can somehow be insulated from those broader tensions is under increasing strain.

Trump is, of course, hardly the first president to try to keep cordial relations with a fellow world leader even as their countries clash in the trenches below. Nor is he the first to be hammered for doing so. Notably, former president George H.W. Bush tried to maintain ties to China’s leaders even amid the 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. He was widely criticised for not being more outspoken, but his approach preserved his ability to get Chinese co-operation when Iraq invaded Kuwait the next year.

Trump seems to have a particularly strong belief in the power of his personal ability to woo, cajole and manipulate other leaders. In separate conversations, several of his advisers said that belief is rooted in his New York business experience. Trump has tried a similar approach with Chinese President Xi Jinping, seeking to cultivate a personal connection that can be walled off from the eruption of trade tensions.

But maintaining that approach with Putin, already a strain because of the investigation into alleged Russian efforts to help Trump win the presidency in the first place, has become increasingly difficult. Putin has proved to be not just anti-democratic, but determined to make a mockery of democracy with his interference in an American election. The weekend tragedy in Syria simply makes the strain more extreme.

The Wall Street Journal