CNN’S ISLAMIST OFFERS CHRISTOPHOBIA, JUDEOPHOBIA AND HINDUPHOBIA

CNN is ready to offend every non-Muslim religion on earth.

Reza Aslan has built a career complaining about Islamophobia. Throw a dart at a map of colleges and the odds were good that Aslan would be speaking at one of them about the rising threat of Islamophobia.

Earlier this year, Aslan, an Iranian Muslim, announced that he was going to change people’s minds about Islam and make them more tolerant, “through pop culture, through film and television.“

“Stories have the power to break through the walls that separate us into different ethnicities,” Aslan rhapsodized, “different cultures, different nationalities, different races, different religions.”

CNN gave Aslan a forum. Nearly every episode of “The Believer” that aired has made some religion that isn’t Islam look freaky, unpleasant and threatening. Instead of breaking through the walls, it has surveyed different non-Islamic religions only to sneer at them as strange and weird.

Instead of Islamophobia, it offers Non-Islam-ophobia.

“The Believer” kicked off with an episode featuring a sect of cannibals whom the show associated with Hinduism. Its last episode spread fear over the threat posed by Orthodox Jews. CNN’s “Believer” clips offer Reza Aslan explaining why he’s a Muslim sandwiched between a doomsday cult leader who calls himself “Jezus”, voodoo, scientology and a Mexican death cult.

Not even Al Jazeera would have been this blatant about its Islamic agenda.

Reza Aslan, CNN and “Believer” have already offended a whole range of religious groups. Hindus angrily denounced the misrepresentation of their religion.  But the left has much less interest in Hinduphobia than it does in Islamophobia. Hindu protests outside CNN offices in five cities garnered almost no coverage from the same media that covers every single Islamic protest against Islamophobia.

The media doesn’t believe that all forms of religious bigotry are created equal.

Orthodox Jews condemned Aslan for his fearmongering aimed at Judaism. But the left is uninterested in criticizing anti-Semitism from Islamists. Especially those on its payroll.

“The Believer” has tried to smear Christians, Hindus and Jews. It has yet to profile Muslims. Despite Aslan’s interest in teaching Americans not to be Islamophobes, he seems to prefer pushing Christophobia, Judeophobia and Hinduphobia. But bigots can’t be expected to fight bigotry.

“The Believer” treats non-Islamic religions as a freakshow. The gimmick attracts viewers. See Reza Aslan eat brains, talk to a doomsday cult leader or act afraid of Jews in fedoras. Look at all those freaks!

But don’t expect to see Shiite Muslims cutting their children in the street for Ashura on “The Believer”.

Beneath the hipster approach to religion is malice. Hindus are associated with cannibalism. Orthodox Jews in Israel are swapped in for Islamists. Reza Aslan pretends that Israeli cities are no-go zones as he insists, “If we get out of the car in these neighborhoods, we will be immediately attacked.”

Of course no one attacks him. But Reza Aslan gets to pretend to be afraid of the Jews.

In a CNN article, Aslan warned that Orthodox Jews are “taking on greater political power until, one day, you wake up and find this group has more or less taken over the state.”

If someone were to say such a thing about Muslims, Aslan would be leading a lecture tour to denounce Islamophobia.  Last year, Aslan was peddling “Fear Inc.: The Industrializing of Islamophobia.” Now Reza Aslan is, coincidentally, spreading fear of a religion that Muslims view as their leading enemy.

And CNN is serving as Fear Inc. and industrializing Aslan’s Non-Islam-ophobia.

In his CNN hit piece, Reza Aslan cunningly transposes concerns about Islamic birth rates, theocracy, no-go zones and religious police to Jews. It’s inconceivable that CNN would run a documentary worrying about Islamic birth rates leading to theocracy in Europe or America. But all those worries about Islamophobia don’t apply to Islamists fearmongering about other religions.

Israel, Reza Aslan warns, is on the verge of turning into a “Jewish version of Iran”.

That’s certainly a convenient message to peddle if you’re an Islamist opponent of Israel. In the past, Reza Aslan has been utterly unsubtle in his hatred of the Jewish State.  Highlights included comparing Israelis to Nazis and insisting that Iran wants nukes because it feels threatened by Israel.

But, as critics know, Reza Aslan has two faces. One is a ranting bigot. The other feigns spirituality. The real Aslan is a bigot. The fake Aslan mouths inanities about the universality of religion even as he attacks every religion that isn’t Islam. You can find the real Aslan on social media and the fake Aslan on CNN.

“The Believer” is the perfect platform for Reza Aslan. Its smirking subtitle “Spiritually curious” and Aslan’s inanities convey the image of a hipster looking for religious meaning everywhere. It’s no doubt how the show was sold to CNN. And CNN execs saw Aslan’s approach of showcasing religious freakiness while disguising it with nostrums about the universality of the search for meaning as a safe bet.

But Aslan isn’t spiritually curious. He’s spiritually hostile. He’s learned to disguise that hostility by sounding like a liberal. On CNN, his attacks on various religions are interspersed with disclaimers. But the disclaimers, like the inanities, are meant to get lost in the overall impression that Hindus eat brains and Jews are Islamic terrorists who want to take over everything. That is what viewers will remember.

Reza Aslan postures as a scholar, but he’s callously ignorant of other religions and he isn’t actually interested in learning about them except to undermine them. His curiosity is only a media pose.

“The Believer” continues the trend that defined Aslan’s career. He writes a book defending Islam and then another that attacks Christianity. Then he responds to the criticism by crying Islamophobia.

The only one who should be allowed to stir up fear and loathing of other religions is Reza Aslan.

Christians, Hindus and Jews have taken apart Reza Aslan’s claims about their religions. But despite Aslan’s posturing, he isn’t a scholar. A scholar wouldn’t be boasting about eating brains or pretending to be afraid of Jews in Israel. “The Believer” isn’t a scholar’s work. It’s a malignant attack on non-Islamic religions disguised in one part universalism and four parts sensationalism.

Reza Aslan’s openness is a sham. As is his enthusiasm. He isn’t a scholar of religion but a promoter of Islam. He appears to embrace other religions, boasting, “I feel Jewish” during one episode and writing a book about Jesus, only to undermine them. He thrives by pitting members of enemy religions against each other whether it’s liberal and conservative Christians or secular and religious Jews.

Nothing better could or should be expected from Reza Aslan. “The Believer” is xenophobia masquerading as tolerance and sectarianism dressed up as universalism. Aslan’s episode on Jews in Israel is exactly what you ought to expect from a slick Hamas apologist. Hindus are likewise in the way of Islamic expansionism. As are Christians. Depicting non-Muslims as bizarre normalizes Islamic violence.

Something more ought to be expected from CNN.

The media has long thrived on mocking conservative Christians. It’s fairly casual about taking swipes at Orthodox Jews. But “The Believer” expanded its hit list to Hindus. How many others will there be?

Islam is involved in conflicts with every major religion on earth. How many religions is CNN ready to allow Aslan to smear? How long before “The Believer” heads to Myanmar to settle scores with the Buddhist monks who are defending themselves against Muslim violence? Or to Sudan to go after the Animists facing Muslim persecution? Islamists have no shortage of enemies. Neither will CNN.

CNN won’t report the truth about Islamic terror. Yet it is ready to offend every other religion on earth.

Originally published in FrontPageMag.

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RECOGNITION FAIT ACCOMPLI ACCORDING TO THE KNESSET

IT’S APRIL – YEAR 102 – NO OFFICIAL RECOGNITION

It’s that time again.  April 24th 2017 marks the 102nd commemoration of the Armenian Genocide where Armenians all over the world, including in Israel, will never let you forget what we went through and demand worldwide recognition.  

As An Armenian dedicated to Israel and Armenia, on occasion I write you about pertinent issues.  I have a platform where I am known, Israeli Armenian Solidarity and Israel Rising has welcomed me as a guest contributor from time to time.  Since before the inception of Israeli Armenian Solidarity I have strived to be an instrument of knowledge, information and encouragement.  For the last 2 years I’ve been bringing Israeli affairs and Armenian affairs to the members of the group to speak out for and teach about issues these 2 great peoples, I particularly relished the similarities and our horrific tragedies.  

WHAT IS THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE?  A basic question but believe it or not a lot people still don’t know about the Armenian Genocide.  It was the Armenian Holocaust.  It was perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire 102 years ago.  Initiated on April 24th of 1915 through May of 1923.  Yes, systematically, methodically the government saw WWI as an opportunity to finish the ‘Armenian problem’ ultimately the Christian problem.  Along with slaughtering 1.5 Million of my people, they slaughtered hundreds of thousands Greeks and Assyrians.  Whereas some might say “Aha, it was not targeted” indeed it was.  All three groups are Christian.  Therefore a major underlying factor was our faith.  Every Turkish government has subsequently denied what was perpetrated hence the biggest difference between the Holocaust and the Genocide.  Mind you, the Germans were close allies and onlookers of what ‘their predecessors’ were committing.  And yet, Germany caught red handed could not deny the innocent blood spilt, the Turks did boldly deny and have continued for 102 years.  

So every year, we remember and demand.

ISRAEL’S STANCE:  WE SAY IT’S A FAIT ACCOMPLI

Here’s the definition: An accomplished fact, something that has already occurred; a (colloquial American) “done deal

Last year in July 2016, Zehava Gal-On of Meretz initiated discussions about how imperative it is for Israel the Jewish nation, to recognize the Armenian Genocide in the Knesset quoting Eli Weisel, BD, who had recently passed on.  After some discussion the brilliant decision was made to defer the topic to The Knesset Education Committee.  The next day, the Education Minister came out with a statement:

“It is our moral obligation to recognize the Armenian genocide,” said committee chair Yakov Margi (Shas) at a committee meeting.

We, at Israeli Armenian Solidarity believe the Knesset has recognized the Armenian Genocide as a Fait Accompli.  It is a done deal.  

In fact, I made a video: https://www.facebook.com/keren.m123/videos/1478394385519832/

OK then, great what’s the problem?  There was no official declaration.  Without the official statement we are in a constant arm twisting mode….

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Every year, around April 24th, there are different events/marches being held in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.  Armenians all over Israel gather and call out for admittance from the Turks and recognition from the Knesset.  I ask that you all share this article and demand the Knesset to take that final step.  

This year, my brilliant Hebrew teacher, Zev Garber informed me that Yom haShoah Nairim is also on April 24th. This is no coincidence.  Now is the time.  Stand with us in Solidarity! Thank you.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fait_accompli

http://asbarez.com/152504/knesset-discusses-but-does-not-recognize-armenian-genocide/

http://www.timesofisrael.com/knesset-education-committee-recognizes-armenian-genocide/

https://www.facebook.com/keren.m123/videos/1478394385519832/

Once Again, CAIR shows that Islamism and Civil Rights Don’t Mix

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has been claiming for years to be not merely the nation’s preeminent Muslim civil rights group, but a defender of the civil rights of all Americans.

In addition to denouncing alleged acts of “Islamophobia,” representatives of the organization have been quick to condemn acts of antisemitism, police shootings of African Americans, anti-LGBTQ violence, and so forth, while expressing solidarity with every “progressive” cause under the sun.

But peer beneath CAIR’s carefully-crafted press releases and publicity stunts and it’s clear that the group’s reactionary Islamist roots are as strong as ever.

Last week came a striking demonstration that CAIR’s support for workers’ rights is just a ruse. The group had been seeking for some time to block the Service Employees International Union from organizing the staff at its national office, claiming that it is a religious organization and therefore exempt from the National Labor Relations Act. The National Labor Relations Board rejected that argument in an April 7 ruling.

Contrast this with the high-profile appearance just weeks earlier of a CAIR representative alongside auto workers in Marietta, GA, protesting the anti-union policies of a Nissan plant.

The same hypocrisy was on display in the wake of the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, FL, last year by a radical Islamist, when CAIR leaders across the country condemned anti-LGBTQ bigotry. The media fawned over a statement from the head of CAIR’s Florida chapter, Hassan Shibly, declaring his “overwhelming love and support and unity” for the LGBTQ community.

But CAIR, with it’s strong connections to the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, whose hatred of homosexuals is quite explicit, has a long history of promoting homophobia.

Indeed, Shibly himself decried homosexuality as “evil” and a “quick way to earn God’s wrath” in a 2009 Facebook essay on gay marriage. While CAIR officials have avoided such statements since Orlando, the organization continues to host radical Islamist speakers notorious for gay-bashing at its events.

For example, the radical cleric Siraj Wahhaj, a former member of CAIR’s advisory board, remains one of the organization’s most frequent speakers. Wahhaj has preached that homosexuality is “a disease of this [American] society” and reminded his congregants, “[You know what the punishment is, if a man is found with another man? The Prophet Mohammad said the one who does it and the one to whom it is done to, kill them both.”

Although CAIR officials nowadays speak of women’s rights, the mainstay of the organization’s “civil rights” work is funding lawsuits under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and other statutes to ostensibly protect the “right” of Muslim women to wear face-concealing religious garb in any and all circumstances, from police booking photos and airline security checkpoints to any number of jobs and professions that require dress codes.

“To be shown without a headscarf, it’s almost like being shown naked,” CAIR national spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told the Washington Post last year.

CAIR claims it works to protect the rights of women, but it’s really about protecting the “right” of men to oppress women. Islamists want to create a social environment in which no American Muslim woman will ever have legitimate cause to take off her hijab without the permission of her husband or male relatives.

Again, CAIR’s choice of speakers at its events reveals the duplicity of the Islamist organization’s message. One cleric promoted by CAIR, Abdul Nasir Jangda, has justified the possession of female sex slaves, and advocated marital rape as a “divinely given right.”

The mainstream media rarely challenges CAIR representatives who appear on TV claiming to support lofty ideals that conflict squarely with the extremism they preach within the Muslim-American community.

Deceit lies at the heart of lawful Islamism. Extremists that prosper in the West do so because they have learned to exploit its rhetoric and democratic processes. But it cannot be long before that hypocrisy is laid bare – perhaps it will be the next time a CAIR official expresses solidarity with a labor union.

Originally Published on the Hill.

Yasser Arafat, A Fake Hero, A Lord of Corruption

The Palestinian Authority (PA) was once called the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (the PLO). It was chaired by Yasser Arafat, a hero of Palestinian resistance movement, a godfather of the Palestinian struggle for liberation and an ideological figure for almost every young Palestinian. Very few people knew that Yasser Arafat was a fake hero, a lord of corruption and a true godfather of Palestinian terrorism.

Palestinian leadership under Yasser Arafat received millions and millions of dollars every year from Western countries and the Muslim world. The Muslim world considered Arafat to be a hero of Jerusalem and even they considered him as a second Saladin who would finally liberate their land from the Jewish occupation.  The Muslim world knew very little or nothing about Yasser’s double faced status. Leaders like him have two faces, two languages, and two sets of promises. When they communicate with the international community, they use one set of languages and values, and make statements and commitments relating to a desire for peace and co-existence. When they turn their faces towards their own nations, they show a monstrous face. When they address their people, they never talk about peace, instead inciting their people towards terrorism. And they are even better at enriching themselves at the expense of the well-being of their people.

Yasser Arafat was one of the best of them. He always used his people to conduct terrorist activities and in return he and his organisation received billions of dollars from countries that included Qatar, Iran, Syria, Russia and other Arab countries

Yasser Arafat also never disclosed his actual wealth even to his party and family. He was one of the most greedy and cruel persons of in the short history of the Palestinians. A friend who worked with Israeli intelligence disclosed that Arafat died along with the knowledge regarding 75% of his secret foreign accounts and no one supposedly knows where they are and how to access them.  This is the wealth stolen from Palestinian aid received as donations to change Palestinian lives. The remaining 25% of Arafat’s personal accounts were openly transferred to his family. His wife and his daughter live in a most luxurious palace in the Parisian suburbs. Their wealthy life style can be compared to European royalty.  According to my Israeli friend, together the two of them spend approximately $50,000 daily maintaining this luxurious and fashionable life style. They even do not bother to live among their own people, people this father and husband supposedly fought a war for during much of his adult life. They care nothing about these people who live in intense poverty, they only concern is maintaining their life style.

In 2003, The International Monetary Fund (IMF) began to carry out an audit and found at least two billion dollars of Palestinian Authority Fund monies that were missing. It is now believed most probably that these funds were transferred to Arafat’s family in Paris. While Yasser Arafat was in a Paris hospital, his wife Soha Arafat agreed to disclose Arafat’s medical record on the condition of stopping the ongoing investigation into the missing funds. The PA was very frustrated not to be able to officially locate and recover the missing money which they were assured to have been transferred to Soha Arafat’s Swiss bank accounts. Finally, they agreed to pay her $2 million dollar a year for the rest of her life. Whether this means she secretly returned the money or not is speculation.

Israel’s Mossad not only believed but provided enough proofs to the government of Israel that Yasser Arafat controlled a personal financial portfolio estimated to be in the region of $6.5 billion.

The Arab media including the Syrian, Jordanian and Lebanese newspapers received a top-secret report regarding the financial status of the PLO, disclosing that for years the PLO had a deficit of over $95 million a month. The report became even more explosive in the Arab world when the IMF revealed that Arafat had diverted a billion dollars or more of PLO funds to his and his and Soha’s personal Swiss bank accounts from1995 to 2000. A Palestinian lawyer who has investigated PLO corruption said,

… [I] knew of four Arafat loyalists who held secret Swiss bank accounts

The deals frequently involved the cement and building industries of the Palestinian territories. The corruption ran into millions of dollars, which Arafat covered up in return for the profiteers giving him a portion. It was often said Arafat was the godfather of all the godfathers. The secret investments of Yasser Arafat were disclosed by an American financial investigation team and the report stated that Arafat invested his secret money after it was transferred from PLO funds to his personal Swiss account. Some of those investments included the Coca Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a Tunisian cell phone company, and many venture capital funds in the US and the Cayman Islands. The money for a large part of his investments came from public funds like Palestinian taxes. Virtually none of it was used for the welfare of Palestinian people and it was fully controlled by Arafat and his family.  Arafat travelled almost all of the rich Western and Arab countries around the word and crying to everyone that, “We (Palestinians) are devastated and our economy is going to collapse and we cannot pay salaries to Palestinian employees and it is because of Israel’s occupation and blockade”. He convinced those countries and the IMF that the words of his mouth were true and if they were not going to fund PLO, the Palestinian economy would be damaged and would collapse completely. They did not yet suspect that Yasser Arafat was draining a huge amount of that money into his personal bank accounts and his people were really still being deprived through high unemployment and poor economy which those funds were supposed to be relieving.

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Under the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 and 1995, it was agreed that Israel would collect sales tax on goods purchased by Palestinians living in Israel under Green Card status and transfer that money to Palestinian treasury but instead transferred immediately transferred it into his private accounts. From the outset of the Oslo Accords until 2000, Israel put the tax revenue into Arafat’s accounts at Bank Leumi in downtown Tel Aviv. Israel’s intent was that Arafat would use it to clean the area of terrorists and for the Palestinians’ welfare.

According to US officials,

Arafat had nearly $3 billion in his personal financial portfolio of the known 25%

But, again, this part of his portfolio was already known to the Intelligence departments and the Western financial powers. At that time nobody was aware of the absconded 75% of the monies, the part only he-and likely his wife and daughter- knew about.

According to an Israeli official, when Yasser Arafat was alive he paid $100,000 per month out of the Palestinian budget to his wife Soha who remained in Paris where she lived lavishly on this allowance. Arafat had an additional account in the Swiss bank for the PA but the code name of the account was one only he knew. There had to have been more than $300 million in his other Swiss account at Bank Lombard Odier, as this is where all the money was transferred to from the Israel’s Bank Leumi. As was noted earlier, Arafat’s secret Swiss accounts were closed around the time he died and no one will say where that money went.

No one even knows about how high the salary amount was that Arafat collected as a Chairman of PLO when he was in exile. Arafat received hundreds of millions of dollars from the KGB (the USSR’s intelligence agency) and the Saudis.

The now-deceased Saddam Hussein reportedly handed Arafat a $50,000,000 check for supporting him during the first Gulf war.

Where that money gone, I believe Soha Arafat knows. Further scandals where Arafat was directly involved in kickbacks, such as that of the Gas and Petrol’s pipeline in to Palestinian areas and Arafat’s investment in world’s stock markets will be addressed  in other article at some point.

Many Palestinian people had and have little money, adequately paying jobs, and own decent homes and businesses. The Arafats of the Palestinian people have all money to dispense and have everything to fulfill Palestinian dreams. If he could have used that money to push up the Palestinians’ economy instead of diverting this money to pay terrorists’ salaries, those whose only job is to commit terrorism against the state of Israel, think of what might exist today.  He could have built schools and universities that sent Palestinian youngsters, making them an educated people who design new technologies, create medicines, and make the whole world a better place. Instead he sent them in to the training centers in order to create terrorists. Palestinian children should be looking at long, health, prosperous lives in their own country instead of seeing their only purpose in life as being one to die young.

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Yasser Arafat was not a hero of the Palestinians but a mafia lord in a corrupt network. He, his wife and daughter chose to be greedy money mongers who destroyed their people’s chance at a real nation and left a dark and hopeless future for the new generation of Palestinian people. Now, Gaza under Hamas and the PA under Mahmood Abbas continue running under Yasser Arafat’s steps to total corruption. In future articles I shall address their dirty politics of corruption and human rights abuses within the Muslim world.

Originally Published in TOI Blogs.

Get Ready for the Trump Doctrine

When Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched the 21st century’s second deadliest chemical weapons attack on Tuesday, President Trump must have paged through President Obama’s playbook in responding to this century’s deadliest chemical attack less than four years earlier and resolved to do exactly the opposite. It turns out he’s onto something.

When pro-regime Syrian forces gassed the Damascus suburb of East Ghouta in 2013, a year after President Obama warned Assad that use of chemical weapons would cross a red line, the Obama administration spent three weeks preparing to do something.

Cognizant that the American public was overwhelmingly opposed to military action, it decided to win congressional authorization first. Unwilling to act alone, the administration worked to secure international support for and participation in U.S.-led retaliatory air strikes.

Concerned that U.S. military action against the Assad regime would raise expectations of a broader policy shift against Assad, making it even harder to persuade the rebels to attend U.S.-brokered peace talks, Obama administration officials worked to deflate these hopes. Secretary of State John Kerry famously assured the world that the planned strikes would be “unbelievably small.”

Obama’s response to Assad’s 2013 chemical attack was a legendary failure.

The result was a legendary failure. Angry over the intentionally negligible scope of the planned air strikes, congressional Republicans withdrew their support. Britain’s parliament voted against air strikes, while NATO allies demurred with the exception of France. Moves to secure an Arab League resolution fizzled.

President Obama ended up abandoning the planned attack in favor of a Russian-brokered commitment from Assad to dismantle his chemical weapons arsenal. Not only was the agreement not fully implemented — smaller-scale chemical weapons use continued intermittently until this week — but it forced the international community to acknowledge and deal with Assad for the first time since the civil war began, leading Sunni governments to step up support for militant Islamists and paving the way for Russia’s military intervention the following year.

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Obama’s former defense secretary, Leon Panetta, later conceded that his handling of the crisis, “sent a mixed message, not only to Assad, not only to the Syrians, but to the world.”

President Trump appears to have learned all these lessons in the wake of the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held town in Idlib province on Tuesday. He acted unilaterally, neither waiting for nor requesting the participation of other nations. He felt no inclination to shield himself from public backlash by seeking authorization from congress. And he acted quickly, with airstrikes coming less than three days later.

Trump’s response was quick, unilateral, and politically courageous.

Rather than assuring everyone beforehand that the planned strike would not change Washington’s posture in Syria, Trump hinted at further action, “to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria” and “end terrorism of all kinds and all types.”

Although Trump’s military action was every bit as limited as the air strikes planned by the Obama administration four years ago, it is likely to be far more effective in achieving its aims.

In addition to sending a clear message to the Assad regime that the U.S. will not hesitate to punish further use of chemical weapons, Trump’s military action signals unmistakably to other states in possession of unconventional weapons that the U.S. will respond forcefully to their use. The fact that the Trump administration was visibly warming to Assad as of the beginning of this week underscores that improved relations with Washington won’t offer much protection against the consequences of WMD use.

By washing away the stain of Obama’s shameful handling of the 2013 Ghouta attack, Trump’s bold action will make it easier for the U.S. to establish and enforce red lines regarding other adversaries on a range of other issues without having to resort to force.

But here’s the kicker. Ordinarily, an American president launching unilateral military action without United Nations approval or anything but pro forma consultation with allies would elicit howls of protest from the international community — doubly so, you’d think, if his name happened to be Donald Trump. The astonishingly favorable reaction to the strike throughout the world underscores that bold American leadership and decisive action are the way to win friends, not multilateralism and diplomatic nicety.

Originally published in the Hill under the title “Trump Learned from Obama’s Mistakes and Took Action.”