On Syria, Which Version of Trump Will Win Out?

On Thursday, Donald Trump, who as a presidential candidate the “eggheads” who wouldn’t let him torture terrorists because it would violate international law, defended the post-World War I against the deployment of chemical weapons in warfare. Trump, who as a presidential candidate an Iraqi dictator’s use of chemical weapons, a Syrian dictator’s likely use of sarin nerve gas inexcusable. The man who any enemy of terrorists his friend—be it Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or his fight against the Islamic State in Syria. The America Firster who condemned the stupidity of U.S. military interventions in the Middle East (some of which he had at one point supported) was now intervening in the Middle East. The president who banned Syrian refugees from America’s shores was Assad for extinguishing “the lives of helpless men, women and children.”