Yesterday, after releasing a statement on the recent chemical attacks that the Assad regime   made on the Syrian public earlier this week, President Trump made the rather hurried decision to execute a military attack on the Syrian government. These airstrikes, comprised of 59 Tomahawk missiles, ended up killing more than 80 Syrian civilians near the city of Damascus. A projected 150 plus Syrian citizens have been killed this past week as a result of these two events.

Before the chemical attacks, Trump had a maintained a relative firm stance on his heavily touted campaign foreign policy of “America first,” a rebranding in a sense of American isolationism in international affairs.

This 180 degree digression on day 77 of his presidency however has already sent ripples of fear and anger throughout not only the United States and Syria, but all over the world. Early Friday morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin, a close affiliate of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, made a statement declaring the missile attack as being an “affront to international human rights norms.” Representatives of the Russian government as well have commented on what a “blow” Trump’s decision was to already precarious US-Russia relations.

This however is not the first time that civil war-torn nations in the middle east. have become battlegrounds through which lingering Cold War tensions between the States and Russia have played out though. Though in his official address on the airstrike, Trump commented on the deep concern and disgust he feels toward the state of Syrian affairs, this act of aggression was the very worst measure the U.S could have chosen to carry out.

It is appalling quite frankly, that this escalating decision was made. The people who are going to be hurt the most by this and the reverberating effects it may have in potentially bringing Russia and the U.S into this conflict now as well are exactly those who Trump did this in concern for: the Syrian people.

For six years now, the people of this nation have been caught in between the conflicts between rebel groups, ISIS, and the Assad regime. Hypermilitarization of this already war-racked zone, if anything, will only expedite the seeming genocide of the Syrian people and increase the already pressing refugee crisis.

Though the true reach of this act is one that is too early to definitively know –and we may not see it manifest for months or maybe years– it was a grave, grave mistake that thousands more innocent people are going to have to suffer and die for.

Haphazard Western interventionism has only killed those who were most vulnerable before in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The repercussions will no doubt be the same in Syria.