It seems, given the horrific images broadcast to the world in the wake of the chemical attack in Syria earlier this week, there will be considerable public support for America's decision to launch 59 cruise missiles against an Assad government air base in Homs.
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The slaughter of innocents in the badly troubled country has gone on for far to long; the regime's repeated use of chemical weapons against its own citizens is unconscionable and it is clearly time something has to give if this long running tragedy is to be brought to an end.
Australia, as a key American ally, was notified of the missile launch before it occurred and Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has come out in support of the action. He stressed, however, this did not mean Australia was at war with Syria.
We now have a situation where if any president other than Donald Trump had given the order this would almost universally be considered an appropriate response to a premeditated atrocity that claimed at least 70 lives, including an as yet unknown number of children.
The difficulty for many is the strike was ordered by the new president and does, to a certain extent, appear to vindicate gloomy predictions made during last year's election campaign that if Trump took office he would drag the world into war before the year was out.
Pundits wanting to go down this path need to be wary of straying into hypocrisy given the widespread criticism of President Obama for stopping short of launching a similar retaliatory missile attack after an earlier chemical attack on civilians by the Assad regime in 2013.
It would be inconsistent to condemn President Obama for not acting on the one hand and then to criticise President Trump for doing the exact opposite.
The American political response, at this stage strongly supportive, is complicated by the fact Hillary Clinton, Trump's 2016 presidential rival, had only hours earlier suggested Syria be targeted by the U.S. military.
Other key American allies, the United Kingdom and Israel, have already praised the swift and measured retaliation which Pentagon sources have said might not stop here.
The cruise missiles had destroyed Syrian aircraft, infrastructure and equipment and definitely put a crimp in the regime's ability to conduct similar chemical attacks in the immediate future.
"The intent was to deter the regime from doing this again," Captain Jeff Davis said. "It will be the regime's choice if there's any more (attacks), it will be based on their conduct moving forward."
The Assad regime's principal supporters, the Russian and Iranian governments, have predictably condemned the strike.
Claiming, rather implausibly, the Assad regime does not have chemical weapons Russia has called for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council.
Whether, in light of its own obvious failure to honour a 2013 commitment to secure Assad's chemical arsenal, it is able to have America censured for the launch remains to be seen.
