This week we look at the consequences of americas air strikes on president assads air base. And we discuss the relations between beijing and washington. My guests this week are the china expert isabel hilton, the north American Writer and broadcaster jeffrey kofman, and rachel shabi, a writer on Middle Eastern affairs. Welcome to you all. The horrific pictures of the gas attack in syria have brought a swift american missile attack. Rachel, how is this seen in The Middle East . Where do we go from here . It seems to have support for trumps reports. There was praise for the courageous move. The king of saudi arabia praised the move. Bahrain, jordan, turkey. Israel, so the allies in the region were supportive. The reaction from syrians has been positive but measured. Of course, people welcome some retaliation for such a horrendous act, a Chemical Attack against your own people, Syrian People are going to be positive about anything that retaliates against that, to show that in an International Community that is not acceptable. It is also measured in the sense that syrians would say that is good, but why are there no similar reactions when there is attacks when the Syrian Regime throws barrel bombs on us or when there are Chlorine Gas Attacks . There was also a reservation in terms of what is this actually mean . Does this change anything on the ground . Is this a recalculation in terms of us policy . It has been clear that they have been keen to stress this doesnt change its policy, it is a one off strike of retaliation for those Chemical Attacks. The trouble with these things is that often Military Attacks have their own calculation. When we look at the syria conflict, it is clear half a Million People have been killed, two million have been injured and over half the population are now refugees, some internally. Torture is a regular feature from both sides. It is clear the Syrian Regime are responsible for most of those killings but it is also clear that neither side would be able to perpetuate this war were it not for external players, and that is the problem. I saneff shaking his head. American Foreign Policy suggests there is some sort of logical strategy here. I think we have seen this displayed this week. There is no Foreign Policy. This is a man who in his speech to Congress Said america first, we will take care of our own and he is doing exactly what obama and others did. He was horrified by the images and said, lets drop some bombs. Did he say it or did others say it . There was a problem where there is no coherent strategy. It is the lack of strategy. Some believe obama showed weakness when he drew his red line. He has brought in people like Hillary Clinton and senator john mccain who support what happened. This is an incredibly domestic policy. What it underlines is we cant logically calculate where he goes next. That is terrifying. A lot of people have been saying that this has been a good thing but where does it go . Who will support trump . One of the many Unanswered Questions is where does it go . That was part of the problem. When the British Parliament defeated the proposition to join obama for a limited Military Attack on assads chemical weapons. I still dont hear the answer now. Cameron couldnt answer it then. There has been revisionism about what happened in 2013. The reason Cameron Lost The Commons Vote was because of a lack of clarity about what would follow. What the objective was. It seems to be the case again here. You have the something must be done reaction to the horror of those events earlier this week in syria. Something has been done. Assad is still in place. You have this heightened tension with russia. Ijust dont see where it is going. In terms of international alliances, there have been declarations of support from the British Government and elsewhere but it transforms the us relationships with these countries. Britain was told i dont blame America Britain was informed a few minutes beforehand. That is a massive contrast with the blair Bush Relationship where blair played a subservient role but was involved in iraq and afghanistan. Was anyone told earlier . My understanding is a few minutes before, britain was told. Russia might have been told. This is a different operation. The us didnt need britain for this operation and doesnt need it for what it says is planned. It is worth looking at this as a moment in the trump administration. We begin to see a bit of maturity not necessarily in the emotional reaction to pictures of dead babies, because there has been a lot of dead babies in syria. If you look at the Campaign Promises or the Rhetoric Trump had, everyone who understands International Relationships and united statess role in it, rolling our eyes and dreading what was to come. This week, as this has been going on, we have had steve bannon pushed out of the highest levels of security. They are pushing this radical destruction. They are being sidelined and you have a more experienced Security Team getting a grip and explaining to donald trump that you do need a policy. Can you explain to donald trump . He is proposing to cut 40 of the state departments budget. They enable a lot of the information. I would be interested in six months time if we dont look at this moment and think this could have been a moment where trump realises that winning it for an audience in pennsylvania is not the same as being president. Do you think so . I love your optimism. Lets agree to reconvene in six months and see. I think this is a guy who doesnt know history and hes not that curious and i think hes learning that this is not like running a Real Estate Company in new york and actions have massive consequences and you cant control what those consequences will be. I like what youre saying but i am as optimistic that even with a smarter team, there is the resemblance of a team taking a hold of Foreign Policy. I think we are really vulnerable to these kinds of knee jerk reactions. I agree with what you say. Chemical weapons are apparent but lets be clear. Assad has been killing civilians for six years now and to suggest this is more vile than all those other murders, its inconsistent. It is notjust bashar al assad. He has only been able to do them because he has backing from outside players who may read this situation differently. That is the problem. Lets talk about russia. While the us assures this is a one off retaliation for the Chemical Attacks, Bashar Al Assads supporters might see it through a different lens and they might choose to retaliate by escalation. That has always been a problem with this conflict. The Syrian Regime can only do what it is doing. It controls a third of syria and it can do that because it has support from russia, iran, hezbollah and shia militia coming in from afghanistan and iraq. Without that, it wouldnt be able to hold the grounds that it does. We also have to accept that the opposition is only able to maintain its opposition because of outside players. That is the worry. Russia might see this as a need to bolster its support for the Syrian Regime. It could have terrible consequences on the ground for the Syrian People. The opposition might see this as an opportunity to use it for leverage for more weapons pouring into the region. That is what we dont want to happen. We dont need Military Escalation in syria. The only thing that can possibly work is a De Escalation on military terms and that is something we are not seeing trump and his team engage with. There is a different layer to this and that is american russian relationships. Trump was talking about a reset and he has used this embrace of putin and the lack of questioning of putins tactics. Now he has thrown a Tomahawk Missile in the middle of that relationship. A huge pressure on trump. What really generated his emotional response was the tv pictures, the chemical weapons were the triggers but it was the emotional pictures on tv that made him want to do something. He will be under pressure to respond if there are equivalent pictures through other means other than chemical weapons. Once a line has been crossed, it is difficult to say, i am not doing anything this time. It was a one off. There is a danger of this escalating without clarity as to where it is going to end. We will end this part of the discussion. Im sure we will be coming back to it. Oh, to have been a Fly On The Wall at mar a largo this week, president trumps Florida White House where he met with the chinas president. Was anything achieved, particularly over troublesome north korea . Jeff, what do we know . All of that was disrupted by what happened in syria. I know you want to move on but it is hard to separate them. This was meant to be a Relationship Building exercise and this unilateralism by trump changed the agenda and changed the message. I think it is a question of what the lingering effects of syria and that unilateralism are between the relationship between them. We have this ioo day plan. Expectations were low and settling over china, we had fingers crossed to make sure nothing goes horribly wrong. You have mismatched sides. You have a chinese president who hates surprises. Everything he does is choreographed and prepared long in advance. He has a difficult Political Year this year. He has a Party Congress in the autumn which he needs to consolidate his grip on power. It is always a challenge in china. He doesnt want to be put in any embarrassing public position. Theyve sat through anti chinese rhetoric for months and things like questioning the one china policy. From his perspective, what they had to do was present an image to the domestic audience that the president is treated with dignity and can manage this lunatic in the white house. That was successful. They were unhappy about syria and china is a big ally of syria. If you look at the Chinese Press this morning, syria is buried on page eight and images of a harmonious exchange are front and centre. For the domestic audience, thats fine. In terms of substance, there was nothing much to be achieved in this period. What they needed to set in place is what are the structures of this relationship Going Forward . Things like the climate exchange, which was extremely promising. That has gone. The 100 days on trade is the beginning of a new structure of routine exchanges in which what the americans will be trying to do is get some concessions they can present to the voters back as having an impact on the economy. The chinese have things to give in terms of Market Access in china. It wont make a substantial difference to the condition of the American Economy which has problems for other reasons. On korea, they can agree that they are both equally concerned, even if they have different solutions. Steve, you are my widening out man. The relationships, those meetings at the white house will have been watched closely because the relationships between america and china are really important. They are, and on the biggest scale. What happened this week was rather in the same way as when theresa may went out to see trump. It was more symbolic than anything else. She had to get through it without some catastrophe in the same way the chinese leadership had to get through this without some terrible thing going badly wrong. They had to get through this, Common Ground is going to be around trade and trying to do something about korea. It was completely overwhelmed by this unilateral act in syria, with the implication that however much you discuss and seem to get on superficially with the president of the united states, a unilateral act could follow which calls into question relationships and alliances. This was absolutely wiped out, the significance of this embryonic opening and potentially difficult meeting. The reaction of the chinese to the action in syria . Publicly they have said very little about it. There has been some commentary that this was a signal to north korea and i would hope he would have taken donald trump aside and said, do not strike north korea. Syria doesnt have the capacity to hitjapan or south korea or the united states. North korea has that capacity. The problem with north korea is the development of a Nuclear Programme which you cannot guarantee to wipe out in one strike. You would create a massive crisis on that peninsula and on the whole of north asia. You would spend years regretting it. Trump has said he will take on north korea. This is really frightening about what has happened in syria. Trump has done a 180 on his policy towards syria in a matter of days and has done things where he has condemned others. North korea is a much more geopolitically menacing presence. Simple solutions to that problem not going to work and will create a domino effect. You have to hope that trump got that message. China can sit quiet over syria despite it being an ally. They cannot sit quiet over north korea. That is right on the border and there is no easy solution in north korea. Do you want the collapse of north korea . North korea does not want that and Borders China or south korea. China doesnt want south korea on its border. South korea doesnt want to pick up the mess. Rachel, how do you see it . I found this meeting was interesting in terms of reminding me about the meeting with Angela Merkel. Trump has been dissing china throughout his campaign. Terrible china, responsible for americas trade deficit, provocative in its own region. Gaming the economy. All kinds of things and insults he hurled at china. Much the same way that he hurled at Angela Merkel in the way she was running her country. They then have to come and meet him. It is absolutely the case that if he is then going to do these u turns on his policy, it does throw into question the point of these lines of diplomacy in the first place. He obviously doesnt hold them in much regard. Jeff, what happens now . Are we going to move into a more serious presidency . No. I think we are starting to see him discover that swagger doesnt work. That is clear. Perhaps it is too much for us to be reading into Television Images and photographs. He just looks like he doesnt want to be there. When he is in the real white house, it is like a lion in a zoo in his cage pacing back and forward with cnn. I dont think we should assume that we are going to see inconsistencies. Is he dangerous . It is certainly dangerous. There was this wild erratic february Press Conference he gave where at one point he said, i suppose you will have to call me a politician. To give him credit, no one can accuse this victory of going to his head. It is as if he thinks it is a downgrade from being this Business Leader because it involves politics and being political. He regards these things as almost with a degree of disdain. It is fascinating because most people, if you become president of the united states, at the very least, you think, its not bad. I think he now thinks he is involved in politics. He doesnt like failure and he has had a number of huge failures. He will not admit that it is his fault but he will change his team and i think we are beginning to see that. He is beginning to understand that if he is not to repeat these failures, he needs to have a structure in place. We hope we can be contained in a structure that can now be built. One of the questions that comes up is how long will he be president . Is he going to be president for months . Years . Eight years . Oreven12 years . Will he extend . It is an interesting game. Like chavez in venezuela, will he try to change it . He doesnt like the responsibility and doesnt want to be seen as a loser. There is a scenario that says he could actually step down at some point and say, ive done what i wanted to do and have pivoted the country and set it on a new course. Then he ensures that he is not a loser. He writes his own exit lines. It is an interesting theory because the question is, he is 71, 72. Does he have the drive to actually do a really hard job . Some say he is one of the healthiest president s. One of his doctor says this. In the time i have been covering politics, it is the most uncertain, unstable, unpredictable period that ive covered in all kinds of areas from china, The Middle East, it is hugely uncertain. Lets not talk about it for any length of time because we spend our lives doing it. Brexit is another example of it. The president ial election in france is another extraordinary moment. I have never. Journalists exaggerate dramas and the significance of fleeting events. This all seems to me to be very unstable and turbulent in quite an unprecedented way. Rachel . If you are in any way progressive, what is interesting is watching the reaction and the opposition to that, and one of the disappointing things that makes me more worried is even looking at the way people who have consistently said, trump is dangerous, unstable, we cant trust him, they have switched to support his action on syria. That lack of consistency worries me. We have run out of time. Thats all we have time for. Dateline will be back next week same time same place. But as this is my last time hosting, i want to thank all of our guests and also you, our viewers. Until we meet again, goodbye. Good morning. Warm spring sunshine at the weekend saw an early outing of the summer and it is not surprising when we had clear blue skies, lots of sunshine and lots of heat, highs of 25 in parts of cambridgeshire, and generally in the south east on sunday, glorious. But thicker cloud further north and west, here a bit fresher, and rain in the far north of scotland by the end of the day. Now, this Weather Front is significant, because as it continues to go south, it wont bring rain, more cloud overnight, but introducing a north westerly wind and a colder air source so it will feel noticeably different as we go into tomorrow morning. Quite a lot of cloud around, so not a cold start in the south. But one or two of these showers up into the far north of scotland will be wintry to the tops of the mountains. Breezy with the showers continuing here, we could see a few showers in North East England through the day with a little more cloud developing into the afternoon. Now, for one or two of us, for instance wales and the south west, there will be more sunshine than yesterday. But temperatures a bit more subdued generally across england and wales, 8 10 down compared to sunday, and the risk of showers in lincolnshire and east yorkshire. Not a bad afternoon, in terms of dry, with sunshine in northern ireland, and a scattering of showers in scotland, perhaps more organised showers moving to the Western Isles by the end of the day. And that will continue to move in across the far north of scotland overnight monday and into tuesday. At the same time, High Pressure just address a little bit further west but it is still keeping its influence across much of england and wales, and so that basically means there will be a good deal of dry weather in the story again on tuesday. Chilly start, but sunshine coming through, cloudy with outbreaks of showery rain into the far north of scotland. Again that north westerly flow with the strengthening wind becomes a feature on wednesday. Gales likely on exposed coasts here, and there will be a little bit more cloud around from weakening Weather Fronts but no significant rainfall in the story across england and wales in particular. Top temperatures around ten to 15 degrees. Whats in store for easter weekend . Pretty much more of the same actually, staying predominantly dry, sunshine with a few scattered showers but the Wind Direction stays pretty cool. Take care. Welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. My name is tom donkin. 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