It is hard to believe that there are people equating President Trump’s “Mission accomplished!” statement to George W. Bush’s statement from 2003. The circumstances are not the same and, in this case, the statement is correct.

If Trump stopped after stating the mission was perfectly executed, he would also have been correct. This mission was a cooperative strike with some of our Allies.  The strike caused serious damage to Syria’s chemical weapon-making capability with no Allied or US casualties. There were no civilian casualties. There were no glitches between the strike forces, demonstrating success.

The purpose of this strike was to be a single strike and to that end it was successfully accomplished. Trump stating that the mission was accomplished did not imply forever preventing Syria from producing or launching chemical warfare again but the single point mission was accomplished.

Is there really anyone surprised that Russia, China, and Iran would maintain their united front by publicly condemning the attack? Is there really anyone surprised that our other Allies, such as Israel, Turkey and Germany, would side with the US, the UK, and France?

Trump is taking criticism for not publicly announcing what his next move or moves will be. In reality, the US needs to retain the element of surprise. It is neither the media’s or the citizens’ right to know every detail of what sort of response the US or its Allies should take. We already know the failure of the Obama Administration for stupidly communicating to our enemies what our next steps were to be, almost as if Obama was either warning them or telling them how they could succeed.

Trump also realizes that the US cannot and should not be an integral part of taking sides in the Syrian civil war. Their fight is their fight, not ours. Where the line is crossed is when there is a moral obligation to act because of an act of genocide with the use of chemical weapons. Clearly it is of US interest because if Syria is able to use chemicals on its own people there is the ability to expand that chemical use to others around the globe, including the US.

There are those who believe we did not strike enough. If chemical weapons are delivered by whatever Syria calls an air force then we should destroy the equipment that is capable of delivering those chemicals. We should attack directly against the leaders who followed through with the delivery of those chemicals, neutralizing the threat by taking those military leaders out.

We have demonstrated that we and our Allies are superior when up against these thugs. We have shown that we mean what we say and will act when appropriate, unlike the previous administration’s failures and signs of weakness.

Our enemies continue to question what Trump will do next. Instead of televising our next move, we have won the upper hand in surprise and in power. That is right where the US needs to be.