The American missile strike on Syria Thursday night in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack has surprised some political observers. Dr. Kelly Saunders, Associate Professor of Political Science at Brandon University, says she was a bit surprised because Donald Trump has been fairly isolationist in his approach to world politics thus far and has declared he wants to focus on domestic policy within the United States. Saunders notes this quick action on the president's part was certainly justified, however, because Syria's use of chemical weapons was a clear violation of international law. She says it will be very interesting to see how the other world powers react, noting most of the members of the UN security council have come out in support of the U.S. air strikes--- with the obvious exception of Russia. Saunders adds she believes Russia is truly backed into a corner now because there's quite a clear consensus from everyone else that Assad has to go.

She says Russia may already be having some pointed conversations with Syria's president----possibly even offering him safe haven---because there is no way they can move forward as long as Assad remains leader of the regime. Saunders notes having Assad gone would be the best case scenario and would allow everyone to move forward on some kind of negotiated settlement with the various parties.

She adds Canada has come out in support of the Americans but notes that the Prime Minister's statement was very carefully worded to reflect that this was a limited attack. Saunders says we don't want to support the open invasion of sovereign nations, mostly because it doesn't work and we've gotten into too many other messes when that's happened in the past. She notes we always have to keep our eyes on the bigger picture of negotiation, settlement, and careful regime change.