Welcome to the LRB podcast. In this episode, Adam Shats, one of the LRB's contributing editors,

talks to Joshua Landis about Syria. Josh Landis is the director of the Center for Middle East

Studies at the University of Oklahoma, and his blog, Syria Comment, has long been an indispensable

guide to a country that has never been easy to see, both because of the nature of the

Assad regime and because of the fog of war since the uprising began there in 2011.

Here's the conversation.

Joshua, thank you for talking to us.

Well, it's a real pleasure, and it's an honor to be on your podcast.

Josh, before the sarin attack in Idlib province, it seemed as if Trump would deliver

on his promise to partner with the Russians and work with Assad as a bulwark against the Islamic

state. Whatever you think of that position, it represented a break with precedent. But then

Assad carried out this gruesome attack, and Trump responded, not just with an

airstrike, but with a variety of statements to the effect that he changed his very changeable mind

on the conflict. What's your reading of Trump's Voltfoss? Well, the way I understand Trump's

Voltfoss is that he's really reverting to the Obama doctrine, which is to maintain a red line on the use of chemical weapons, which he has done. I think that this use of chemical weapons was a test. they hadn't, Bissarine had not been used since 2013 when Obama

threatened to use force, but ultimately made a deal with the Russians to get rid of Syria's

chemical weapons, which over 100 tons of which were put onto American ships and incinerated in 2013.

And that held good.

It was a success to the extent that not having chemical weapons used was good for everybody in Syria.

Of course, it did nothing for solving the Civil War, for which he was bitterly criticized.

But President Obama has upheld that, and he has really moved towards an Obama

position on abjuring the human rights violations of the Assad regime, while not really taking

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