FOREIGN POLICY/RUSSIA/SYRIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A week ago, President Trump was accused of being a tool for the Russians, an unwitting agent of influence, so full of admiration that he defended President Vladimir V. Putin against critics who called him a killer.
Now, Mr. Trump is in a diplomatic clash with Mr. Putin’s Russia, his administration accusing Moscow of trying to cover up a Syrian chemical weapons attack on civilians and his secretary of state delivering us-or-them ultimatums.
Even in a presidency marked by unpredictability, the head-spinning shift from coziness to confrontation has left Washington and other capitals with a case of geopolitical whiplash. The prospects of improving Russian-American relations were already slim given the atmosphere of suspicion stemming from Kremlin meddling in last year’s election, but the détente once envisioned by Mr. Trump has instead deteriorated into the latest cold war.
For Mr. Trump’s camp, the abrupt turnaround simply proved how false the conspiracy narrative was from the start. ‘If there was anything that Syria did, it was to validate the fact that there is no Russia tie,’ said Eric Trump, the president’s son.”
-Peter Baker, “Trump’s Shift on Russia Brings Geopolitical Whiplash,” The New York Times online, April 12, 2017