On Wednesday afternoon, the National Security Council convened in the White House, with President Donald Trump in the chair, to discuss how the United States would respond to Bashar al-Assad. Just a couple of hours earlier, in a press conference in the Rose Garden, Trump had denounced in strong terms the Tuesday chemical-weapons attack by Assad on the Syrian strongman's own people. "I now have responsibility, and I will have that responsibility and carry it very proudly," the president said.

The Pentagon's plan, delivered by Defense Secretary (and former Central Command commander) James Mattis, at Wednesday's NSC meeting: a hellfire of Tomahawk missiles on the airfield where Assad's regime had launched the attack. If there was dissent among any on Trump's national security team, nobody spoke up. "Everybody agreed that this was the option that they liked," said an administration official with knowledge of the meeting.

So on Thursday morning, a number of national security officials went to work at the White House believing the strike was imminent. But only a small number of principals—President Trump, Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and national security advisor H.R. McMaster among them—had knowledge the strike would happen Thursday night.

A little more than 24 hours after Trump's NSC meeting, two U.S. Navy destroyers stationed in the Mediterranean launched 59 Tomahawk land attack missiles at Shayrat airbase, targeting "aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars," according to a Pentagon statement. There appear to be no immediate casualties to either Syrian forces or those of Assad's ally, Russia.

"Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line," said the Pentagon in its statement. "U.S. military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield."

Tillerson and McMaster told reporters Thursday night the Russian government was not contacted before the strike. Nor is President Trump expected to speak with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday.

Publicly, the Russians had backed the Assad regime's incredible explanation for Tuesday's attack: that the anti-Assad terrorist group Al-Nusra Front had smuggled a chemical-weapons depot into the country and Assad forces had inadvertently launched the nerve gas into the air while trying to destroy its enemy's munitions. In private diplomatic channels, a Trump administration source says, Russians stuck by the laughable story, which reportedly annoyed American officials. It also emboldened the administration to act.