Story highlights Trump gave one of his best speeches but many key questions surround the US missile strikes in Syria, writes Peter Bergen

Were the strikes only a warning shot for Syrian dictator al Assad, or will they be part of larger campaign against him?

Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of "United States of Jihad: Investigating America's Homegrown Terrorists."

(CNN) President Donald Trump gave one of the best speeches he has ever delivered when he announced late Thursday that he had ordered US cruise missile attacks in Syria -- and that they were directed at the base that sent off the airstrikes on Tuesday that killed dozens with nerve gas, including many women and children.

From his estate in Palm Beach, Trump, visibly moved, described the "beautiful babies" whose lives has been choked out by the gas attacks. In acting against the Syrians over the use of chemical weapons, Trump chose a course that his predecessor, Barack Obama, avoided, even after drawing a "red line" on the issue.

The move was the highest profile use of American military force since Trump took office and it raises several urgent questions for the administration:

1. Were the cruise missile strikes only a warning shot for the Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad, or will they be part of larger campaign against him?

The United States has previously launched cruise missile strikes to "send a message" in which the message wasn't exactly received -- for instance, the cruise missile strikes against an al Qaeda base in Afghanistan that followed the group's attacks on two US embassies in Africa in 1998 that killed more than 200 people. Three years later al Qaeda carried out the 9/11 attacks. The message of the cruise missile strikes in that case clearly did not deter the enemy.

Read More