For Trump, those who are most vocal against him are equally more inclined to be against Assad and those vocally supporting Trump, will be almost celebrating. It also helps defuse Russian ties a little, as some will view this action.

So It will be interesting to see how his approval rating goes over the next few days.

I hope they are not rushing in without all the facts and that is my fear, and maybe they know something that is not public. Time will tell, as always.

Personal or geopolitical? They probably see removing Assad as removing Russia.

You are right... that makes more sense in its stupidity - maybe some Cold War leftover that just hates the Russians beyond all measure and reason

Nothing to do with Russia. Assad is an ally of Iran, and rather than having a politically stable and militarily capable nation in that area of influence, Israel and Saudi Arabia (among others) would rather have a chaos-ridden post war Iraq or Libya. But they prefer to have the dirty job done by the US- usually it doesn't take much, a bit of lobbying and tons of newspaper articles about the cruel dictator usually do the trick.

Taking him out would remove an easy political scapegoat. Better to keep him as an enemy to sabor rattle against.

Those at the top play games, those at the bottom die for it. It's all a way to strengthen the loyalty of voters.