Syria Airstrikes: What's President Trump's Next Move?

President Trump faces more difficult choices following U.S. ordered missile strikes on a Syrian airfield in response to President Assad's chemical attacks on his own people. Incremental military actions that end with desired results are often labeled as "successes," which may be accurate when considered as isolated events, but the assessment provides no measurement of their contribution, if any, to the overall goals that government leaders turned to the military to achieve. Given that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that removing Assad from power is the end goal, what next steps might be taken that fit with the incremental step of attacking the Syrian airfield?

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that the president "is not going to telegraph his next move." In response to a question about whether Assad should leave power, he said, "First and foremost the president believes that the Syrian government [and the] Assad regime should abide by the agreement they made not to use chemical weapons.”

With a president new to the world of international diplomacy and military strategy, and given the complexities of Syria's civil war, predicting what Trump may do next is particularly difficult. We do know a bit about some of Trump's options going forward.

Trump Could Back Off

In the view of Michah Zenko of the Council of Foreign Relations, Trump's rhetoric around the strike appears that it was not the first tactic in a planned broader military attack but was tailored for limited U.S. military involvement toward deposing Assad :

Zenko also argues that such "limited" strikes rarely achieve their political aims. Spicer may have indicated that missile attack required no additional military action, describing the strike as "very decisive, justified and proportional."

Trump Could Go To Congress — Or Not

The consensus on the intent of the U.S. Constitution is that the country's founders wanted Congress to decide whether to go to war. In practice, Republican and Democratic presidents have frequently ordered military operations without the approval of Congress. Executive branch lawyers have argued that the president, as commander in chief, may use military force if he decides alone a strike would be in the national interest, which they say is especially obvious when the use of force would not reach the level of "war" addressed by the founders. Trump may ask Congress to approve continued involvement of the U.S. military in Syria but he would likely do so more for political reasons than legal concerns..

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who has made his disdain for military intervention widely known, accused the president of acting unconstitutionally by ordering the attack. "While we all condemn the atrocities in Syria, the United States was not attacked," Paul said on Twitter. "The President needs Congressional authorization for military action as required by the Constitution."

House Speaker Paul Ryan argued Friday that Assad's actions did constitute a threat to the United States.

"The chemical weapons attack committed by the Assad regime was a flagrant violation of international standards, and preventing a deepening of the humanitarian crisis and instability in Syria is clearly in the United States' national interest," Ryan's spokeswoman told The Hill. "As such, last night's response was fully within the president's authority.”

An unfortunate opponent of Trump's military actions is Donald Trump. In 2013, he said on Twitter, "The President must get Congressional approval before attacking Syria –– big mistake if he does not!"

What to do about the Russians?

An administration official told reporters that intelligence officers are working to determine the extent of Russia's involvement in the chemical attacks. More aggressive U.S. military action could cause casualties among Russia's military personnel, who have fought in varying numbers to prop up Assad forces. Battlefield deaths caused by either country against the other would create much bigger problems than those the United States already faces.

U.S. officials are hopeful Russian President Vladimir Putin will make good on his 2013 agreement to eliminate Assad's chemical weapons, which could provide Trump to revert to his previously long-held stance against U.S. military involvement in Syria. Putin has said Assad's chemical weapons have already been destroyed, and yet here we are.

What about an international coalition

Before the announcement of the military strike Thursday, Tillerson told reporters that the international community needed to put pressure on Assad to step down. Banding together with a large coalition of other nations could help put pressure on the brutal leader to leave power.

"If you’ve seen the response from the world community," Spicer said Friday, "they understand that the U.S. acted appropriately and in most cases there is widespread praise from around the globe for the president’s actions.”

In a statement, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced that the United States was calling for an open session to discuss the events in Syria with concerned nations, despite the request of Bolivia to hold a closed session. "Any country that chooses to defend the atrocities of the Syrian regime will have to do so in full public view, for all the world to hear," Haley said.

With Russia and Iran continuing to support Assad's rule, however, it's not clear what an international coalition will be able to accomplish.

Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images News/Getty Images