Syria war: US strikes a resolute signal from Trump

Both the scope and the method of the US attack on Syria's Shayrat airbase suggest that this was a punitive and limited strike intended to deter the Syrian government from using chemical weapons in the future.

The Pentagon says that the airbase that was hit - a little south-east of the city of Homs - was the location from where the aircraft that carried out this week's alleged chemical attack took off.

It says that chemical weapons are stored at the facility. The use of Tomahawk cruise missiles - a kind of arms-length strike - would have enabled an attack with great accuracy.

US warplanes and their crews did not have to encounter Russian air defences. And the number of missiles used - 59 - suggests a strike that was intended to do real damage.

The Russians, the Americans say, were informed about the strike in advance; an attempt to limit any repercussions. The target list, according to the Pentagon, rested heavily on aircraft and infrastructure. The aim was not to kill Syrian personnel but to deliver a message.

The 'anti-Obama'

This was a one-off attack to enforce deterrence against the use of chemical weapons, rather than a game-changer intended to destabilise and take-down the Assad government. So the first question is: will it succeed ?

Well, a message has clearly been delivered. There will be those who insist - like the Russians - on asserting that Syria has not used chemical weapons and was not responsible for this week's attack.

The Americans and much of the international community begs to differ. Sarin has been used before, in Syria in 2013. It crossed a "red line" drawn by President Barack Obama - but nothing happened

So this was a message to both Damascus and Moscow that there is a new man in the White House; Mr Trump is, if you like, the "anti-Obama" and they should take note.

Nerve agent - specifically Sarin - which was again used this week is a horrible weapon. President Trump in his own comments after the US strike, spoke movingly about the deaths of children in the chemical attack.

But of course children have been maimed and killed virtually every day in Syria for several years. And other chemical weapons have been used by both sides: chlorine gas by the government and mustard agent by so-called Islamic State (IS).

Is President Trump's new "red-line" going to be enforced against these attacks if repeated ?

Measured strike

There are those who have argued that it is the Trump administration's whole approach to the Syria conflict and its single-minded focus on defeating IS that may have emboldened President Assad to mount this chemical attack (though Syria has denied carrying it out).

If so, then President Assad's gamble seems to have failed, drawing a very different response than perhaps Damascus expected.

If this was a test for the Trump administration, then he seems to have risen to the challenge, using military power in a precise and proportional manner to reinforce the civilised world's long-standing antipathy to chemical weapons

Federal hiring freeze dropped

US President Donald Trump has reversed course in the space of 24 hours on an array of populist positions he adopted during the election campaign.

He declared Nato was "no longer obsolete" and dropped his pledge to declare China a currency manipulator.

Mr Trump also said he was no longer opposed to a federal exports agency he once dismissed as "unnecessary".

And the president signalled he was open to reappointing Janet Yellen as head of the Federal Reserve.

Meanwhile, his administration dropped a freeze on federal hiring that it imposed in January.

The about-faces suggest the mercurial Mr Trump may be favouring a more pragmatic, moderate approach to the hardline economic nationalism that helped elect him.

The startling series of flip-flops come amid reports of a titanic White House power struggle between chief strategist Steve Bannon and senior adviser Jared Kushner.

According to the Washington rumour mill, Mr Bannon - the former Breitbart News executive - has been sidelined after falling out with the president's son-in-law, Mr Kushner.

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China no longer a currency manipulator

Mr Trump's decision not to label China a "currency manipulator" emerged in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

That U-turn follows his talks last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Mr Trump repeatedly pledged to label Beijing a "currency manipulator" on his first day in office, during an election campaign when he also accused the Asian powerhouse of "raping" the US.

But experts said a formal declaration to that effect by the Treasury Department could have led to US sanctions, which would have prompted retaliation from Beijing.

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Trump now 'respects' Fed chairwoman

Mr Trump's last campaign ad depicted Janet Yellen, head of the Federal Reserve, as a member of a shadowy globalist cabal "who control the levers of power in Washington".

On Wednesday, he told the Wall Street Journal he "respects" the US central bank chief.

He also indicated he might consider reappointing her next year, saying she would not be "toast".

Mr Trump was once highly critical of the Fed, saying its low interest rate policy had hurt savers. Now he says he likes "a low-interest rate policy".

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Federal hiring freeze dropped

On his first working day in office, Mr Trump signed a presidential memorandum to suspend hiring of non-military federal workers, in a move that delighted small government conservatives.

The order mandated that "no vacant positions… may be filled and no new positions may be created".

But that policy was gone on Wednesday. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said: "It does not mean that the agencies will be free to hire willy-nilly."

He said they were "replacing it with a smarter plan, a more strategic plan, a more surgical plan".

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Export-Import Bank no longer 'unnecessary'

In the Wall Street Journal interview, the president praised the Export-Import Bank, which he dismissed in August last year as an "unnecessary" agency with "a lot of excess baggage".

The bank, which provides taxpayer-backed loans for the purchase of US exports, is accused by conservatives of corporate cronyism and welfare.

Now he plans to fill two vacancies on its board.

"It turns out that, first of all," Mr Trump told the Journal, "lots of small companies are really helped."

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Now a fan of Nato

Mr Trump repeatedly questioned the military alliance's purpose during the campaign.

But as he hosted Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House on Wednesday, the US president said the threat of terrorism had underlined the alliance's importance.

Erdogans _ Turkey .

Some guests were awoken by the gunshots, others by the buzzing of three Black Hawk helicopters.

It was the early hours of 16 July 2016. Around two-dozen Turkish commandos dropped into the grounds of the luxury Club Turban hotel in the coastal resort of Marmaris, armed with automatic rifles and grenades.

They were hunting one man - Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The president had been holidaying at a private villa linked to the hotel.

Tanks move through the streets of Ankara

While rebel soldiers in Istanbul and Ankara blocked roads and bombed state buildings, the commandos had been sent to capture the president. It should have been the climax of their coup d'etat. Opening fire and hurling grenades, they stormed the hotel, killing two bodyguards.

But they were too late.

Acting on a tip-off, Erdogan had been whisked away from the resort by helicopter. Once at Dalaman Airport, he took a private jet to Istanbul, with his pilot masking its identity so it appeared on radars as a normal civilian passenger plane.

After 03:00, the president emerged outside Istanbul's Ataturk Airport to the roars of his supporters.