Syrians gather in capital in defiance after airstrikes

ESCALATION Russia warn the strikes will not be left without consequences; UN Security Council rejects its resolution condemning ‘aggression’

DAMASCUS: Hundreds of Syrians gathered at landmark squares in the Syrian capital on Saturday, honking their car horns, flashing victory signs and waving Syrian flags in scenes of defiance that followed unprecedented joint airstrikes by the US, UK and France.

Shortly after the one-hour attack ended, vehicles with loudspeakers roamed the streets of Damascus blaring nationalist songs. “Good souls will not be humiliated,” Syria’s presidency tweeted after the airstrikes began.

Immediately after the attack, hundreds of residents gathered in Damascus’ landmark Omayyad square, celebrating what they said was the army’s success in shooting down or derailing some of the missiles.

Many waved Syrian, Russian and Iranian flags. Some clapped their hands and danced, others drove in convoys, honking their horns in defiance.

“We are not scared of America’s missiles. We humiliated their missiles,” said Mahmoud Ibrahim, waving a Syrian flag. The crowd then moved toward the nearby Damascus University where pro-government fighters danced, waving their automatic rifles over their heads.

The seemingly limited strikes with no apparent future strategy for how to deal with the wider civil war was a cause for celebration by Assad supporters but criticised by the Syrian opposition.

Mohammad Alloush, spokesman for the Army of Islam rebel group, called the airstrikes a “farce” in a Twitter posting. Nasr al-Hariri, a senior opposition leader, said Syrians need a strategy that leads to a political solution to “save it from the brutality of the Syrian regime.”

BUT WHAT EXACTLY IS THE MISSION?

On the morning after, President Donald Trump declared success. The surgical strike against chemical weapons facilities in Syria had been executed perfectly, he said on Saturday.

“Mission Accomplished!” he tweeted.

That’s a phrase presidents and politicians have studiously avoided since President George W Bush’s ill-fated aircraft carrier visit prematurely declaring success in the Iraq War.

But aside from the curious choice of words, it raised the essential question regarding Syria going beyond the one-time strike: What exactly is the mission?

For most of Trump’s presidency, it has been to defeat the Islamic State and then get out.

But what Trump outlined in his televised speech to the nation on Friday night was something more complicated. He promised a sustained campaign to stop Syria’s government from again using chemical weapons on its own people, while also emphasising the limits of the US’ ability or willingness to do more to solve the bloodletting that has devastated that country for seven years.

Trump finds himself in a position not all that different from that of his predecessor, President Barack Obama, and with no easier answers.

The strike brought home Trump’s competing impulses when it comes to Syria — on the one hand, his manful chestthumping intended to demonstrate that he is the toughest one on the international block, and on the other, his deep conviction that US involvement in the Middle East since the attacks of September 11, 2001, has been a waste of blood and treasure.