Syrian chemical plants hit

Trump hails missile strikes, but their effect remains in question.

Defense Department WASHINGTON — officials said Saturday that U.S.-led strikes against Syria had taken out the “heart” of President Bashar Assad's chemical weapons program, but acknowledged that the Syrian government most likely retained some ability to again attack its own people with chemical agents.

Warplanes and ships from the United States, Britain and France launched more than 100 missiles at three chemical weapons storage and research facilities near Damascus and Homs, the officials told reporters, in an operation that President Donald Trump and Pentagon leaders hailed as a success.

“A perfectly executed strike last night,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!”

Still, even as Trump lauded “our great Military,” the reality was that, for the second time in just over a year, he had sent missiles crashing into Syrian military targets, adding U.S. firepower to one of the most complex and multisided conflicts in a generation.

Beyond the immediate question of whether the strikes actually accomplished the stated goal of diminishing Syria's capacity to make and use chemical weapons, the new strikes posed the risk of

drawing the United States more deeply into a conflict in which Russia and Iran have more invested than ever in keeping Assad in power.

The strikes hit Syria before dawn Saturday, with loud explosions jolting residents of Damascus, the capital, from their beds as their walls and windows shook. U.S. officials said the offensive was to punish Syria for what they called a chemical weapons strike last Saturday on civilians in Douma.

A statement by the Syrian military said 110 missiles had been fired. Three people were injured in Homs, it said. Videos from Damascus showed Syrian air defense missiles launching into a dark night sky, and the Russian military said that at one Syrian air base, all 12 cruise missiles that targeted the site had been shot down.

Defense Department officials batted down those claims, saying that the entire U.S.-led operation was over and the targets were destroyed before Syria launched any of the 40 missiles it fired into the air.

“Taken together, these attacks were able to overwhelm the Syrian air defense system,” Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff director, said at a news conference. “None of our aircraft involved were successfully engaged by Syrian defense forces.”

He added that the barrage of missiles had hit their targets within a couple of minutes at most. He said that all three targets had been destroyed, and that all warplanes had returned safely to base.

But the strikes were limited, with an eye on making sure they did not draw retaliation from Russia and Iran and set off a wider conflict. For that reason, Assad may still be able to use chemical weapons in the future.

“I would say there’s still a residual element of the Syrian program that’s out there,” McKenzie said. “I’m not going to say that they’re going to be unable to continue to conduct a chemical attack in the future. I suspect, however, they’ll think long and hard about it.”

The limited nature of the strikes left some observers underwhelmed.

“If this is it, Assad should be relieved,” tweeted Randa Slim, an analyst at the Middle East Institute.

Sure enough, early Saturday morning, Assad’s office posted a video that appeared to show him strolling into work in a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase as if nothing had happened.

Condemnation of the strikes from Syria’s allies was swift. Russia called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, called the strikes “a crime” and the leaders of the United States, France and Britain “criminals.”

“But they will not benefit from this attack, just as they committed similar crimes over the past years during their presence in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and did not benefit from them,” he said.

There were no signs of immediate retaliation, suggesting that Assad and his allies planned to weather the storm, perhaps in the belief that the United States was mostly concerned with avoiding deeper involvement.

“If I were Assad, I would be thinking, ‘Let them get it out of their system. Things are still trending in the right direction today,’ ” said Faysal Itani, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “Nothing that Trump said on television really touched on the Syrian conflict.”

In announcing the strikes Friday night, Trump suggested that more U.S. action could be on the way. “We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” Trump said. Other officials, however, said the United States and its allies were done for now.

Saturday’s strikes were more extensive than those Trump launched in the wake of another reported chemical attack last year, but much has changed in Syria in the meantime to make Assad and his allies more secure.

The rebels who once threatened his control have been routed from all of Syria’s major cities, and even from smaller strongholds like Douma, the last town they held near Damascus, which they surrendered after a reported chemical attack killed dozens of people last weekend.

Meanwhile, the war has further shattered Syria, and international powers including the United States, Russia, Turkey, Israel and Iran — along with militant groups including Hezbollah — have intervened to fight for their interests.

Iran and Russia have expanded their military reach. Russia has a presence on most Syrian military bases, President Donald Trump speaks to the nation on Friday, announcing military action against Syria for its apparent gas attack on civilians. and its air force has been essential to Assad’s recent advances. Iran has used the chaos of war to strengthen its proxies to deter and possibly confront Israel.

The United States still has about 2,000 troops in eastern Syria working with a Kurdish-led militia to fight the jihadis of the Islamic State. But with the militants now nearly defeated, U.S. officials have started thinking about when to withdraw. Before the suspected chemical weapons attack in Douma, Trump had said he wanted to bring them home soon.

While the United States called for Assad to leave power early in the conflict and gave cash and arms to the rebels who sought to overthrow him, it has more recently resigned itself to his remaining in power. That was partly because it feared the vacuum that could emerge if Assad’s government collapsed, and partly because it was clear that Russia and Iran were willing to invest more in winning than the United States was.

So Saturday’s strikes remained focused on punishing him for using chemical weapons. Last year’s strikes had the same goal, but only succeeded for a limited time.

“Military interventions have a shelf life,” said Andrew J. Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who studies Syria. “For a certain time, it prevented them from using chemical weapons, but after a while it dissipated. So we’ll have to wait to see how this attack is different.”

Assad’s allies probably know that any direct retaliation against the United States could quickly escalate into a war they do not want. But they could look for other ways to respond, by striking U.S. allies in Iraq, Syria and Israel, or brutalizing Syrian civilians with conventional weapons in areas the rebels still control.

But they have made it clear that they will seek to protect their substantial investments of blood and treasure.

Before the strikes, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, warned the United States against taking “reckless steps,” comparing U.S. strikes in Syria to its interventions in Libya and Iraq. “Now, I hope, no one will gamble on embarking on such a risky venture.”

For Iran, Assad’s survival is a priority.

On Thursday, Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran’s foreign policy czar, reiterated his country’s support for the Syrian government during a visit to eastern Ghouta, which contains Douma.

“We will stand by Syria’s government against any foreign aggression,” he said, adding that no U.S. strikes would affect the presence of Iranian troops, nor their efforts to build proxy militias in Syria.

“Iran and Syria have never been as powerful as they are today,” Velayati said. “Those who will remain will be the true owners of Syria, and those who will be destroyed are the Americans and the violators.”

The Israeli government expressed some satisfaction with the U.S. attack on Syria. “Last year, President Trump made it clear that the use of chemical weapons crosses a red line. Tonight, under American leadership, the United States, France and the United Kingdom acted accordingly,” a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry said Saturday morning.