Amerika is terug van weggeweest... en de rechtse media vieren terecht feest

After six years of US passivity, there are limits now and America will enforce them. Nor was the raid the beginning of a campaign for regime change. It was, however, a reassertion of an American stake in both the conduct and the outcome of the war. America’s abdication is over. Be warned.

Moreover, the very swiftness of the response carried a message to the wider world. Obama is gone. No more elaborate forensic investigations. No agonised presidential handwringing over the moral dilemmas of a fallen world. It took Obama 10 months to decide what to do in Afghanistan. It took Trump 63 hours to make Assad pay for his chemical weapons duplicity.

America demonstrated its capacity for swift, decisive action. And in defence, mind you, of an abstract international norm – a rationale that dramatically overrides the constraints of America First.

For now, however, the traditionalists are in the saddle. US policy has been normalised. The world is on notice: Eight years of sleepwalking is over. America is back.