Trump's Tremendous Policy U-Turn Disasters

When Donald Trump was just an ordinary citizen, he used to give his advice to President Obama and others about the situation in Syria. Now he is President, will he be taking his own advice?

Here is a taste of what he had to say :

Here are some more :

So you can imagine our surprise when Trump orders a military strike in Syria. Now here is the interesting thing. If he genuinely thought that the Syrian government was behind the Chemical weapons attack, then the attack has accomplished nothing, and was a pathetic waste of money. Money that was supposed to be for “America First”, as his core supporters are now reminding him. A strong argument that he did not actually believe the Syrian government was behind the attacks is that they did not want to investigate the matter. If he really wanted to isolate Syria from its Russian and Iranian backers, proof of using Chemical weapons would have done that. The fact that Trump and his allies reacted to YouTube clips and no independent investigation or evidence suggests an ulterior motive.

If he did not believe the Syrian government were behind the attacks, why is he getting involved? It is literally the opposite of everything he has always said about foreign policy.

So what is the play here? Why did Trump order such a “non-strike” Strike? Some commentators have said that it gives him an air of unpredictability that will reign in Russia. Putin was embolden by Obama’s non-confrontational approach and this lead to Russia annexing areas of Ukraine. Trumps unpredictability means that Putin and others will not be able to second guess if Trump will react, confront or ignore gestures by other nations.

Or it could just be that the role of the American president is to simply read the script that the White House and Pentagon officials give him, and he is simply a figure head rather than decision maker.

Or it could be simply that Trump is a businessman and benefits financially from his policy decisions.