One-Off Strikes Accomplish Nothing. Assad Must Go.

Posted: April 19th, 2018

By Emile Nakhleh

Dr. Emile Nakhleh is a retired Senior Intelligence Service Officer, a founding director of the CIA's Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program and the Global and the National Security Policy Institute at the University of New Mexico. Since retiring from the government, Nakhleh has consulted on national security issues, particularly Islamic radicalization, terrorism, and the Arab states of the Middle East. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The American strikes last week on Syrian chemical production, storage and delivery facilities amounted to no more than another pinprick and a slap on Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s wrist and were devoid of any long-term strategy. It was a “one-shot” strike to punish the “Butcher of Damascus” for a one-time heinous act, which the regime has withstood. Despite Trump’s “Mission Accomplished” bravado, Assad was more belligerent the morning after the strikes than ever.

That is partly why I continue to argue that deposing the Assad regime as punishment for its continued brutality against the Syrian people is the only logical course of action – something I argued last week in The Cipher Brief – a position I believe has been bolstered by Assad’s nonchalant reaction to the U.S., UK and French strikes.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Subscriber+