Former CIA Director Mike Morell, in an NYT Op-Ed that got approving signal-boosts from knaves and fools, wrote the following:
"President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was a career intelligence officer, trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them. That is exactly what he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump’s vulnerabilities by complimenting him. He responded just as Mr. Putin had calculated."
In a sense, Morell, also "a career intelligence officer, trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them", was both projecting and tipping his hand as to what the Deep State response would be to a Trump presidency. Trump, who is every bit as egotistical, over-sensitive, and easily-baited as his critics say, responded to the Deep State's "Putin Puppet" narrative perfectly by being goaded into taking an anti-Putin action in the form of his strike against the Syrian military. His critics, predictably, patted him on the head and fed him a treat.
The Deep State, whose agenda Morell is forever devoted to, has put Syrian regime change back on the table, will try to do the same in Iran, and may even get the cold or hot war with Russia that it's after.
I just hope the rest of us survive it.