SAND AND DEATH
(2019) Trump Says ISIS Is Defeated. Reality Says Otherwise.
Just two weeks after President Donald Trump triumphantly declared the “100 percent” defeat of ISIS’s caliphate, his national security advisor, John Bolton, admitted on television that “the ISIS threat will remain” and that this explained why a small “observer force” would now stay in Syria.
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This is the hopeful story that hawks within the Trump administration are selling. Indeed, the media appears to have become the platform of choice for the many serving government officials who are trying to coerce a reversal in Syria policy. The reality is in fact more complex and less promising.
First, the Tanf deployment depends heavily on Jordanian support, which is far from guaranteed given the Jordanian government’s intensive investment in re-engaging with the Assad regime. In Iraq meanwhile, U.S. troop levels remain the same, but a new Iran-backed campaign is underway in parliament to eventually force America’s departure.
Second, if the president has conceded that U.S. troops should stay engaged in an anti-ISIS operation in Syria – and there is not yet any evidence that he has – this would have been solely in the hope that doing so would convince European allies to fill in the shoes of the 1,600 or more American troops set to withdraw. After all, President Trump has made his opinions on Syria very clear: The victory against ISIS has been won and what’s left as far as the United States is concerned is “sand and death.”
www.politico.com/...