Blowing up a couple dozen planes from a war criminal’s arsenal makes us all feel good for a few days, especially if it’s in retaliation for a horrible war crime against innocent men, women, and children. Outside of a shot across the dictator’s bow, however, serious observers of world affairs are having a very difficult time explaining what strategic effects the missile attack on a Syrian military airport had.

There certainly hasn’t been any tactical effect—a fleet of combat jets that dropped the sarin gas on a small town in northwestern Syria was up and running a few hours after the strike happened. That the Assad regime felt comfortable bombing the same town and taking off from the same airfield is all the evidence one needs to successfully argue the deterrent impact of last weeks’ operation was minimal.

Assad may think twice about using chemical weapons again — although human rights activists have already reported that Syrian pilots are resuming air operations with chlorine munitions — but Damascus doesn’t need to use those weapons to prosecute the war.

Is President Trump prepared to launch additional military strikes on Syria if barrel bombs continue to rain on opposition neighborhoods, killing 50 to 100 civilians at a clip? And if not, how exactly did the Tomahawk missile attack do anything to help decrease the violence, let alone end the war?