Relations Committee, noted that Trump was hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping the night he ordered the missile strike against a Syrian airfield.

“I think the major audience that Trump had in mind for his missile strike was sitting right next to him this weekend at Mar-a-Lago,” Coons said.

Trump administration officials have been in discussions with their Chinese counterparts over how to counter North Korean aggression.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last month met with the Chinese foreign minister for talks about Pyongyang's nuclear program.The beginning of Obama’s failed policies in the Middle East was his inability to stop Israeli settlements.

As the Obama administration runs out of time and energy, an array of world leaders including Kim Jong-un, Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin are celebrating their frustration of American designs.

But the unlikely source of the signature defeat of Obama’s policy agenda is no enemy, but rather a close ally and recipient of unprecedented American largesse – Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The failure of the Obama “red line” on settlements during his first year in office set the model for future shortcomings elsewhere, notably in Syria.

His demand for an end to the building of settlements offered a preview of his later demands upon Assad.

In both cases, United States officials believed that the fulfilment