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It had to be hard to admit, but it seems to be true. It hasn't even been a year. This is how it should have been at the beginning. The prior administrations were at this for the past 16 years.
I mean the war against the Islamic State,... we succeeded without massive infusions of ground troops, without accidentally getting into a war with Russia, and without inspiring a huge wave of terrorism in the West.
...
Why haven’t we noticed this success? ... because it didn’t require also going to war with Bashar al-Assad or creating a new Syrian opposition army. At the same time, it happened more easily than intervention skeptics feared — so there isn’t a pundit chorus, right or left, ready to claim vindication in the victory.
... But this is also a press failure, a case where the media is not adequately reporting an important success because it does not fit into the narrative of Trumpian disaster in which our journalistic entities are all invested.
The Islamic State is a shadow of its former self. In 2014, the extremist group seemed to make substantial inroads in achieving its stated goal of a caliphate. It boasted tens of thousands of fighters and territorial control over an area roughly the size of South Korea. By almost every metric, Islamic State has collapsed in its Syria stronghold, as well as in Iraq. As a former foreign fighter recently admitted, "It's over: there is no more Daesh left," using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
The rollback of Islamic State must come as a shock to the chorus of journalists and analysts who spent years insisting that such progress would never happen without toppling the regime of Bashar Assad — which is, of course, still standing. A cavalcade of opinion makers long averred that Islamic State would thrive in Syria so long as Assad ruled because the Syrian Arab Army was part of the same disease.
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The great part is that if we take our time, and end things properly - with the countries able to handle their own business - we can get our troops out of there under reasonable (not ideal) circumstances.
Ersin Khizri, a 22 year-old foreign fighter, left his home in Ukraine and travelled to Syria with his wife and baby daughter to join the ranks of Daesh, in which he fought in Iraq. He left the group in January because he found it unjust and turned himself in to opposition forces in Syria instead.
“It’s over: there is no more Daesh left,” he said. “I don’t know what the outside situation is like.”
...
“The goals of the centre are to defeat the extremist ideology of the IS [Daesh] members that we have, ensuring their safety when they leave the centre and that they can live with civilians,” Naser said.
Mr. Abadi’s carefully calibrated statement came months after armed forces wrested back control over Iraq’s major urban areas, notably its second-largest city, Mosul, and shifted focus to mopping up remnants of the militants who had escaped or gone underground in the vast desert border areas between Iraq and Syria.
“Our forces fully control the Iraqi-Syrian border, and thus we can announce the end of the war against Daesh,” Mr. Abadi said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, known as ISIS or ISIL.
“Our battle was with the enemy that wanted to kill our civilization, but we have won with our unity and determination,” he said.
...
“The battles against Daesh are over, but the war is not,” Mr. Allawi said.
Hakim al-Zamili, who leads Parliament’s security and defense committee, estimates that 20,000 hard-core supporters of the Islamic State remain in the country, hidden among the large groups of displaced people or in remote areas of the western deserts.
Your post is very misleading. It was not the NY Times editorial board that wrote "A War Trump Won" it was conservative columnist for the NYT's, Ross Douthat, that penned that opinion piece.
Douthat's OP-ED was criticized by many for failing to emphasize the role Obama played in the defeat ISIS as well as the role of the Iraqs, Kurds and other groups. Trump did little but rest on the accomplishments of others.
The only thing is that many of these ISIS types are now spread out around the globe because of the immigration nonsense from the Middle East. So they are still out there... we just need to remain diligent.
Your post is very misleading. It was not the NY Times editorial board that wrote "A War Trump Won" it was conservative columnist for the NYT's, Ross Douthat, that penned that opinion piece.
Douthat's OP-ED was criticized by many for failing to emphasize the role Obama played in the defeat ISIS as well as the role of the Iraqs, Kurds and other groups. Trump did little but rest on the accomplishments of others.
Dude.... we won. There is a light at the end of the tunnel now to where we can get our troops out of there.
And you are worried about nonsense details who wrote it. Stand up - give Trump credit for hopefully getting this done and our troops out of there. Obama deserves nothing on this.
Your post is very misleading. It was not the NY Times editorial board that wrote "A War Trump Won" it was conservative columnist for the NYT's, Ross Douthat, that penned that opinion piece.
Douthat's OP-ED was criticized by many for failing to emphasize the role Obama played in the defeat ISIS as well as the role of the Iraqs, Kurds and other groups. Trump did little but rest on the accomplishments of others.
What did Barack Obama do to defeat ISIS. Facts, not your opinions.
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