The missile strikes by the United States and its allies have solved little, since “the man responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria remains at large,” Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst said.

“We more or less expected these attacks. There has been talks and a lot of boasting about the ‘nice, smart’ missiles,” Marwan Bishara said.

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“Unfortunately, it’s once again limited to almost pinprick strikes towards three [chemical weapons] facilities. At the end of the day, [Bashar al-Assad] the man responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria and for the death of half a million [Syrians] remains at large, at the head of the Syrian state.”

He also said that US President Donald Trump ordered Saturday’s attack to distract his local audience and to look presidential.

“Just like [former US president] Bill Clinton had Monica Lewinsky and hence attacked Sudan and later Afghanistan, Trump with his Stormy Daniel crisis and his issue with his lawyers, he carries out this attack to look presidential,” he said.

“Believe it or not – I actually could not believe it … [since the missile strikes] all sorts of pundits and others, even those detractors of the Trump administration and President Trump himself are calling him presidential.”