Remember this from Trump’s 2018 State of the Union?
“Last year, I pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the earth,” the president said. “One year later, I’m proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated very close to 100 percent of the territory just recently held by these killers in Iraq and in Syria.”
Or maybe this from last December?
“We’ve won against ISIS,” Trump said in a short video posted on Twitter.
“We’ve beaten them and we’ve beaten them badly. We’ve taken back the land. And now it’s time for our troops to come back home.”
Maybe this, from a few months ago?
U.S.-backed fighters in Syria declared victory over Islamic State on Saturday, marking the apparent end of a years-long global campaign to break the extremist group's hold on the region.
Well, you may be surprised to learn that 45’s declaration of total victory was...not exactly true. The Pentagon Inspector General has put out a report that ISIS is regrouping in Iraq and Syria, due in large part to Trump’s decision to rapidly pull troops out of Syria and to divert attention from diplomacy in Iraq.
The IG’s report also explicitly states that the troop drawdown in Syria, which Trump announced at the end of last year, contributed to instability in the region. The drawdown, which prompted the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis left the US’s Syrian partners in the lurch, without the training or support they need to confront a resurgent ISIS. In Iraq, the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) lack the necessary infrastructure to fight off ISIS for sustained periods.
...
The Trump administration’s decision to focus its attention on Iran reduced its capacity to effectively counter IS in Iraq and Syria, according to Brett McGurk, former special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL who served under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.
I don’t fully trust the Pentagon and obviously bringing home U.S. troops fighting in the Middle East is a laudable goal, but I think it’s interesting how the military seems so willing to sell out their C-in-C as a miserable failure. It’s almost like they think he doesn’t know what he’s doing.