There is now a strange symmetry to the two principal foreign policy crises the Trump administration is confronting: the civil war in Syria and North Korea's growing nuclear weapons programme. No one in the Trump White House has publicly pushed for a large ground intervention, even if Mr Trump could get such an operation past Congress. At best, the Trump administration hopes it could do a grand bargain with Moscow and Beijing, persuading them to help bring things under control. Moscow could retaliate for the Syria strike with further violence in Ukraine or by destabilising Eastern Europe. The meeting between Mr Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping was always partly intended to be about clearing up some of those differences.

Source: Bangkok Post April 13, 2017 20:15 UTC