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Left, by Ron Sach/Pool; Right, by Joseph Eid/AFP, both from Getty Images.

The speed with which Donald Trump flipped from promising to leave Bashar al-Assad alone to launching a missile strike against the Syrian dictator sent heads spinning across the globe, turning hawkish critics into his grudging supporters. But no heads spun more than those on the far-right fringe who had spent years blasting Barack Obama for suggesting military action against the Syrian regime, and who'd supported Trump passionately. Trump, they believed, would keep the country out of any unnecessary wars, and the Trump administration promised to do so as recently as last week. The longer-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people, said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last Thursday on a trip to Turkey. The same day, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley declared that Americas priority is no longer to sit and focus on getting Assad out.

Reassured by the presence of America-Firsters like Steve Bannon in the West Wing and Trumps own rhetoric on the campaign trail, the alt-right, ignoring the evidence of his waffling about the Iraq war, quickly bought the idea that Trump had drunk their isolationist Kool-Aid.

In fact, Trump imbibed the pro-war Kool-Aid that is the drink of choice in elite circles even faster, to the alt-rights disappointment. When Trump condemned Assads chemical weapons attack on his own people, which killed dozens of children and emergency workers, several of his fringe supporters screamed that he was being duped into a war by a false flag operation. The Syrian gas attack was done by deep state agents, tweeted alt-right agitator and the Trump administrations favorite blogger Mike Cernovich. The fake news media (which works for them) wants you to ignore basic logic and 101-level game theory and strategic thinking to reach an illogical conclusion. Stay vigilant! Infowars, the site run by extreme conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, took it a step further and blamed the attack on Democrat billionaire George Soros.

The Breitbart front page was less frothy-mouthed but ominously hinted its disapproval by noting how Republican Hawksa neologism for the pro-war neoconservatives the site loatheswere praising Trump. Ann Coulter, once the high priestess of Trumpism, slammed Trump for abandoning his campaign principles, suggesting he had only acted because he saw upsetting images on TV.

Coincidentally, the missile strike came only hours after Bannon, the de facto representative of the alt-right in the White House, had been removed from the National Security Council Principals Committee, cutting off his access to military decision-making. His supporters quickly, and not without logic, blamed the Syria situation on the same people they believed were responsible for Bannons ouster and diminishing stature in the West Wing: Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law and the leader of what a White House source described to Politico as the West Wing Democrats. Breitbart Londons editor-in-chief, Raheem Kassam, spent most of his Friday radio show tearing into the Trump administration. Unrest? Im apoplectic! he tweeted angrily to a reporter wondering if there were signs of unrest from the far-right news outlet. Call [Kushner ally] Dina Powell. Ask us why she wants to drag us into a proxy war with Russia.

Read more from the original source:
Alt Right Goes Apoplectic Over Trump's Decision to Bomb Syria - Vanity Fair