Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi is the leader of Daesh, aka ISIS. He is a mysterious figure, having rarely been seen in public. Armies fighting in Syria have claimed his death a number of times, only to be proven wrong. I wrote of two of these rumor, once in 2014, and again in 2017. Now, new video […]

Last week, Kurdish-led forces in Syria defeated ISIS in a battle over the terrorist organization’s last stronghold. The victory ends ISIS’s territorial hold, but the battle is ongoing as remnants of the group’s army faces Iranian backed militias in the country’s south. Sune Engel Rasmussen reports for The Wall Street Journal: The SDF released videos […]

At The Federalist, Daniel DePetris explains that “the usual suspects,” and the “national security blob,” are fighting the attempt by President Trump to exit Syria. DePetris writes that further involvement in Syria is “unnecessary, costly, and dangerous for the United States since it prevents us from focusing on higher priorities.” He writes (abridged): At the […]

At The American Conservative, Scott Ritter defends President Trump’s criticism of the American intelligence community’s controversial Threat Assessment Report. The report contradicted the policies of the president, and opened him up for jibes from his opponents, but Ritter reminds readers that the intelligence community has a checkered history, and that presidents who have maintained their […]

David C. Hendrickson, a professor of political science at Colorado College and the author of Republic in Peril: American Empire and the Liberal Tradition, explain in The American Conservative that it will be difficult for President Trump to fulfill his promise to leave Syria while maintaining pressure on the Iranian regime. He writes (abridged): Lost in […]

Gareth Porter explains at The American Conservative, how President Trump has “offered the country a new course, one that does not involve a permanent war state.” Trump has blown up the the “transparent schemes” of the military industrial complex, which has been fighting tooth and nail to keep American forces in Syria. This is the […]

On the night of Christmas 2018, President Trump and first lady Melania secretly left Washington to visit U.S. troops in Iraq. Surprise visits have been a hallmark of the holiday season since President George W. Bush surprised troops in Iraq during Thanksgiving 2003. In his column, James Freeman (WSJ) reports that White House pool reporter […]

In The American Spectator, Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi a Jihad-Intel Research Fellow at the Middle East Forum, explains how President Trump’s announcement of rapid withdrawal from Syria is in accordance with his consistent messaging on the issue, and that those who wanted to “stay indefinitely,” in the country failed to offer a compromise that could work. He writes (abridged): […]

In what appears to be a major surprise to politicians across the world, in Syria, President Donald Trump is doing what he promised he would. Pat Buchanan explains that any others reasons for American forces in Syria, such as blocking Iranian weapons transports to Hezbollah for the Israelis, were not what the President was focused. […]

Matt Purple, managing editor of The American Conservative explains how Donald Trump, by exiting the Syrian conflict has avoided further involving America in a Muslim sectarian civil war, and also left the cleanup of Syria to Russia, a country with an economy the size of Italy’s. He writes: Washington melts down over Trump’s Syria withdrawal. Their obsession […]