Will President Trump finish the job after West wakes up to war criminal Assad?

Frankly, no-one knows when it comes to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

With these two demagogues in charge the rules of the last decade have been well and truly consigned to the the furnace.

There is no second guessing either of them.

That said the situation is more unpredictable than precarious – even if it feels more like the latter

But it could escalate quickly.

The Kremlin has talked tough in response to last week's US airstrikes – but this was to be expected.

Moscow and Damascus couldn't have believed the world would yet again turn a blind eye to the use of chemical weapons.

Within days of the 59 US Tomahawk cruise missiles destroying the Shayrat air base the Assad regime was back to bombing its own people – this time with conventional weapons.

So what has changed?

What we are seeing seems to be an elaborate game of chess being played out between the rival powers, testing each other's capabilities, strength, and reactions.

Donald Trump – accused of cosying up to Russia and leading America into isolation – did not hesitate one jolt in sending a message that neither he nor the States would be retreating from the world stage.

One suspects his actions were as much as a sign of strength to Kim Jong-un and his sabre-rattling regime in North Korea as they were to Putin and Assad.

Russia has been able to use the recent impotence of the West – still scarred by Iraq – to mount invasions in Crimea and Georgia as well as increasing its military presence on the border with Estonia and siding with the Assad, Iranian, and Iraqi regimes over Syria

Having got away with using chemical weapons once before, Assad presumably thought he had nothing to lose by doing so again.

The fact that the West watched hundreds of innocent men, women and children gassed to death back in Ghouta in 2013 and did nothing is shameful.

For Syrians, war has been a reality for six years.

For the rest of us it has been something we have watched on our TV screens.

The country is in turmoil and we wait to see who will strike next.

The Russians have suspended an agreement with US military commanders to prevent accidental encounters between the two countries' air forces.

This is a potential flash point.

Perhaps surprisingly, it took the election of President Trump for the West to finally stand up to Assad the flagrant war criminal and Putin the aggressor.

But the two pertinent questions he now faces are whether he has the appetite to finish the job – and by what means?