Further erode relations between Israel and other ME countries.
Turn international political option against Israel.
The only path to any kind of resolution in which Gaza gets sovereignty is if Israel is forced to the table by the international community.
To do that, Hamas has to get Israel to kill as many Gaza citizens as they can
If anything, that supports the idea that the poll numbers should be even harder against the war than they are reported.
It was all part of an effort to economically hurt Russia in response to the war.
Best case scenario was Russia deciding the hit to their economy was not worth the war and back pedaling. No one realistically thought this was going to happen though.
The next best case scenario was for the changes in quality of life for the average Russian would create enough internal pressure that the war would be called off.
This hasn’t happened yet but internal support for the war has been dropping over the last year and some of that is attributed to the dismal state of the Russian economy, which is a direct result of things like Lush pulling out.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/12/02/russians-support-of-ukraine-war-collapses-finds-poll
And even if neither of these come up fruition, the more Russias economy is damaged the harder it is to fund their war effort. This gives Ukraine a bit more breathing room in their war effort.
While the effect of a single company like Lush is unnoticed, it’s the collective effect of everything from these pullouts, to trade sanctions and other soft power diplomatic plays which total up to a noticable effect.
Just because things don’t turn out how you hoped doesn’t mean you didn’t make the right decision at the time with the information that was available.
Too often we judge past actions only through the lens of hindsight. It’s useful for learning what went wrong but it’s not useful for judging if something was the right decision or not.
President has wide latitude in matters like this. Air strikes in this context are legal for him. He can even deploy troops as long as their deployment isn’t longer then 60 days.