DONALD Trump, if nothing else, is certainly unpredictable. It wasn’t that long ago that he and officials within his administration were confiding that regime change in Damascus was not something that Washington was contemplating, and that the Islamic State (IS) group remained the prime target. This would have been music to the ears of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, who, following his regime’s military recapturing of Aleppo, must have thought events both on the battlefield and diplomatic front were finally moving in his favour. Maybe it would be best to keep Mr Assad in power after all, was the prevailing thinking in some quarters at the time.

Given this shift in Mr Assad’s favour why then, one must ask, would he risk invoking the wrath of Washington and the international community by again deploying chemical weapons?

On the face of it such an attack – its obvious barbarism aside – seems tactically pointless. Could it perhaps be that President Assad himself knew nothing of the chemical strike until after it had taken place? Syria’s war with its myriad players is chaotic, and not for the first time might there have been a breakdown in the regime’s command and control structure. Such an explanation is not beyond the realms of possibility, even if it has little bearing now on the situation as it stands. Whatever the explanation, in the space of a few days, the country’s conflict has been ratcheted up significantly, creating the potential for even greater regional and international instability.

If Mr Assad’s strategic motives are open to question, then so, too, must be those of his US counterpart. Such was the speed of President Trump’s U-turn on Washington’s Syria policy and given hiss tsunami of domestic political woes right now, it’s hard to imagine his motives for such action were not in great part determined by events at home.

If one of the main hallmarks of this US president is his unpredictability, then another is his unbridled political opportunism. Time and again Mr Trump has revealed his preoccupation with himself, his image and political survival. What better way to deflect heat from the on-going investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 US Presidential election? What better way to neuter the ever-present spectre of the Obama presidency by taking direct action in Syria over its use of chemical weapons, something Mr Obama never did militarily? Mr Trump has shown on countless occasions a willingness to use anything at his disposal to advance his own political position, even perhaps a U-turn on Syria.

Whatever his own motives, what is undeniable is that some response had to be made to the Syrian regime. This after all is a “red line” that Damascus has now crossed on at least three previous occasions with civilians bearing the terrible brunt in terms of suffering and loss. The question now is whether the latest US action will deter Syria from doing the same again.

Despite Russian anger and objections, clearly Moscow was warned by the US in advance and they in turn passed on information about the impending strikes to Damascus. This raises the claim that the attack was largely symbolic. It means, too, that the hope expressed by the Syrian opposition that the strikes are the first of many are unlikely to be fulfilled.

The Trump administration is left in the morally awkward position of permitting the killing of Syrian children, but only seeming to object to the weapons with which they are killed. This is hardly a winning argument on the Arab street.

On a wider level it has thrown up uncertainty over Washington’s hoped-for rapprochement with Moscow, which can only lead to greater risks in the Middle East.

Russia’s decision to suspend use of the deconfliction line substantially increases the possibility of some kind of clash between the US led coalition and Russian air forces in the already congested airspace over Syria.

However, perhaps the most worrying aspect of the US missile attack may be the ease and speed with which Commander-in-chief Trump flipped his policy position.

Al-Qaeda’s success on 9/11 was not just that it struck a blow to the American heartland, but that it succeeded in subsequently redirecting US national security interests.

President Trump has now allowed his national security priorities to be similarly hijacked, which could incentivise other adversaries to try to provoke similar redirections.

Though not necessarily connected, yesterday’s events in Stockholm are yet another reminder that Western action in the Middle East can reverberate back home in the shape of terrorism.

While there may be some satisfaction in the latest US eye-for-an-eye response to Damascus, more missiles will not get Syria out of its war-ravaged morass.

In the end a diplomatic solution and removal of Mr Assad is the only way out. What replaces him, of course, is an equally important challenge if a power vacuum is to be avoided and the war not perpetuated.