It's no accident that the Pentagon launched an unprecedented airstrike against Damascus hours after President Donald Trump removed White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon from the National Security Council, Cornell Clayton, Director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute of Public Policy and Public Service at Washington State University, asserted.

The analyst told Radio Sputnik that Bannon's presence on the council designed to advise the US president on national security and foreign policy matters was "always an anomaly," adding that his primary task was to "make sure that the NSC was de-operationalized."