It appears that Trump liked the media diversion created by his bombing in Syria in retaliation for Assad’s use of chemical weapons on civilians.
On Tuesday, April 11 the Washington Post published a story that the FBI obtained a FISA warrant to monitor Trump adviser Carter Page, apparently in July 2016. “The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.” Page was a foreign policy advisor to Trump during the campaign.
On Thursday the U.S. dropped the “Mother of All Bombs” on ISIS caves in Afghanistan. The bomb, the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal, had never been used before. Not surprisingly, this led to massive coverage in the media, with CNN even outdoing Fox News on time spent on the bomb.
But that wasn’t all. On Monday the U.S. rerouted an aircraft carrier and missile ships toward North Korea. On Thursday NBC News reported that the Trump administration may launch a preemptive strike using conventional weapons if North Korea moves toward a nuclear weapons test, even though North Korea has conducted six nuclear weapon tests previously. Such a strike would certainly lead to an attack by North Korea on South Korea and U.S. military bases there.
Perhaps it’s only a bluff by Trump, although if so it’s an ill-advised one, as North Korea is definitely going to test more nuclear weapons. One hopes that the military advisors in the Trump administration will persuade Trump not to take military action, though if they succeed then some U.S. credibility will be lost.