It seems like every Republican president over the past 40 years has instigated a significant invasive military action involving ground troops.

• Ronald Reagan invaded Granada
• George Bush Sr. invaded Iraq
• George Bush Jr. invaded Iraq and Afghanistan

Bill Clinton followed Bush Sr., and while there was military action on his watch, it did not involve ground troops, just bombing. Barak Obama committed ground troops, but this was a continuation of the wars he inherited from Bush Jr., not something he initiated on his own.

The question is whether Republican Donald Trump will follow the pattern. He did not waste much time putting the military to work in Syria, but that was an air strike, not a commitment of ground troops. Would Donald Trump really want to invade Syria?

Possibly. What if Trump and Putin both agreed to put ground troops in Syria to fight the Islamists? This would not happen before they had come to an agreement on the future of President Assad and the country itself, but stranger things have happened.